Oliver Newberry Chaffee Oil Paintings, ca. 1915
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GUEST:
I've got two oil paintings that I purchased approximately six weeks ago at an estate auction. At this particular estate sale, I purchased three oil paintings, and I paid under $600 for the three.
APPRAISER:
But the third painting is not by Chaffee. One thing I read about the artist was... a great quote was that he was modern before modernism was popular. This painting is dated 1915, a great early date. This painting is only signed, but I would assume it's from a similar time period. I think it would be interesting to show the back of this painting, because there's some information on here. I was only able to find an image of him in later life, so I wasn't sure if this could be a self portrait or a portrait of the artist by someone else. But I did find out something very interesting. I looked up this name, which I think is Mottet, M-O-T-T-E-T. And there was a painter, a woman painter by the name of Jeanie Gallup Mottet, who worked in Provincetown. And if you look here in the foreground, you see a painter with an easel and a model. So this is Mrs. Mottet and her model. So that's the title of this painting on the reverse. Now we can pretty much establish that this is a Provincetown landscape. The other one is likely also. He was influential and important, but it seems to me that that reputation was largely within Provincetown. I think because modernism is so favored in the market, that people are now taking a look at the lesser artists that are not as well known, and I think this is a great moment for Chaffee to come up into the market into his own. So I would say in a retail gallery, this might sell in the range of about $10,000, and this one for about $15,000. I love them, and I'm really so happy that you brought them in today.
GUEST:
I'm extremely happy I brought them. That's amazing-- I had no idea.
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