GUEST:
Well, I was in Manhattan, in New York, visiting some friends, and I'd been going to different antique stores. I happened in Lillian Nassau's, saw this nice mosaic sitting on the floor with a "no for sale" sign on it. So I asked her if she would be willing to sell it, and she didn't sound like she would be interested in selling it. So I looked around a while, and then went on somewhere else and came back two days later and asked her again. So after the... I think it was the fourth time, she had decided that she'd sell it. And so I bought it.

APPRAISER:
What year was that?

GUEST:
That was in 1980. It was in January. She had come out of the store... I had almost got to the stoplight at the end of the block, and she kept running down there, "Oh, you forgot your papers, you forgot your papers." I stopped and turned around, I says, "Oh, my gosh." And then everybody from the store was behind her, saying, "Oh, Lillian, you shouldn't be out here, you've got to get back to the store." And so I went back with her, and she gave me the papers that I'd forgotten.

APPRAISER:
That's great. Well, you know, at that time she was 80 years old.

GUEST:
Oh, is that right?

APPRAISER:
Yes. I actually started working for Lillian probably around the time when you bought this.

GUEST:
Oh.

APPRAISER:
However, I wasn't there for that, because I would have remembered running after her if I had done something like that. Okay, if you were in the store. But I worked at the store for many years, and now it is actually my store. And what did you pay?

GUEST:
I paid $15,000 for this.

APPRAISER:
Did you have to negotiate with her?

GUEST:
Oh, yeah. She was adamant she didn't want to sell it.

APPRAISER:
Right.

GUEST:
So... but when she did, I was just really pleased. It was something I loved very much, and still do.

APPRAISER:
And what is it?

GUEST:
It's a mosaic with an iridized frog and two fantastic poppies.

APPRAISER:
Okay. By...?

GUEST:
Tiffany.

APPRAISER:
Tiffany Studios. Yes. What's unusual about it is most mosaics are either built into a wall, like in a church or in a public building, in banks that Tiffany decorated, or private homes. But there are a few of the mosaic compositions, single mosaic compositions, that exist. But they're actually pretty rare. $15,000 at the time, that was a very strong retail price. Lillian was the kind of person, she used to put those "NFS" stickers, the "Not for Sale" stickers on things, but she would part with something for what she believed was a top retail price.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
And maybe you probably... you probably charmed her, too.

GUEST:
Oh. I think it was the four dates.

APPRAISER:
Could be. This was made in about 1905. Oh. There are some things that are familiar to me. For example, this wonderful depiction of the frog with these teeny-tiny pieces. They look very much like some of the work that Tiffany did in Marshall Fields. There were a series of mosaics depicting the signs of the zodiacs, and each animal or sign was fashioned in much the same way as this frog. And then you have the fabulous poppies, which figure into lamps. You see them in the Oriental poppy lamps. These are wonderfully depicted in two different vantage points. And even the centers are so very, very complex. It's just not sticking a yellow center in something. Many little pieces to comprise that. The big thing about Tiffany when they started to make these mosaics is that he used opalescent and translucent glass. And prior to that, in the 19th century, mosaics were usually made in an opaque glass. So by using translucent and opalescent glass, you have much more of a sense of depth.

GUEST:
Mmm.

APPRAISER:
And the coloration is very beautiful. It enabled you to use lots of different colors. And I was looking at it closely before, because I was... I saw a lot of these black outlines through here and around here, and I wasn't sure what those were. But it looks as though there were pieces of glass that were acid washed, so that they were not reflective. And the outlines make the figures a little more pronounced. And this was one of those tricks that you would see Tiffany use. This is also unusual just in the fact that it's a secular subject matter, it's not religious, and it's not a sample panel. Because a lot of times we see little sample panels, and they're just little fragments of things. But this is a full composition, very charming, with the frog. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen another frog depicted in a mosaic. Now, it's in a bronze frame, not signed. But that's typical. You paid a pretty strong...

GUEST:
I know-- I'm curious if I overpaid.

APPRAISER:
Well, at the time it was a strong retail price, but in today's market, this could sell, in a retail venue, for between $100,000 and $150,000. GUEST (sighs) Flabbergasted. Unbelievable. Speechless. Phew. Wow. Incredible. I don't know what to say. Thank you.

APPRAISER:
To see something like this made my heart go pitter-patter.

GUEST:
Me, too.