GUEST:
Today, I brought in two pieces from Käthe Kollwitz, and I inherited them from my godmother, who purchased them in about 1947 in Heidelberg, Germany. She was stationed in Frankfurt immediately after the war, in 1946, and lived there for five years working in the I.G. Farben building for the Eisenhower headquarters.

APPRAISER:
Oh, wow.

GUEST:
Loved the Army. Spent her career there, 20 years.

APPRAISER:
Tell me about how she acquired these two works by Käthe Kollwitz.

GUEST:
Stationed in Frankfurt, she became very interested in photography, and on one of her trips down to Heidelberg...

APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.

GUEST:
She went into an art framing shop...

APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.

GUEST:
Noticed these in an easel...

APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.

GUEST:
And I believe paid about five marks apiece for them.

APPRAISER:
Wow.

GUEST:
Which was probably 50 cents.

APPRAISER:
Käthe Kollwitz was born in Prussia in 1867. She's an incredibly interesting figure in the German art historical canon.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
She was supported by her family to be able to study painting in Berlin and Munich, and eventually, she became more of a graphic artist, specializing in drawings and in prints. She married a doctor in Berlin, and that particular doctor had a clinic where he treated the working poor during World War I, and it was during that time that she saw incredible sorrow and poverty. And she became very involved with social justice issues.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
Very sadly, she lost her first son in the First World War in 1914, and it was at about that time that her work becomes incredibly brooding and introspective, a little bit sad. By the time the Nazis came into power in the 1930s, she was already associated with the school of German Expressionist artists. She was a very important artist in Germany at the time. She was so important, and her social justice work was so threatening to the Nazis, that she was banned, along with the other German Expressionist artists, as degenerate artists. Once the Nazis banned her work as degenerate, she was no longer able to show or sell her work in Germany. And then, sadly, she died in 1945, just as the war was ending, and she never had a chance to revive her career. Today, she's incredibly well-known. Her work is very well sought after. Major collections in museums and private collectors seek out her work. The first one, the etching, is called "An der Kirchenmauer," which is "Under the Church Wall." It's from 1921. The second one is a drawing. It's a pen-and-ink drawing. It's just-- just most beautiful treatment of the face and the hands.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
Do you have any idea who the subject might be of the drawing?

GUEST:
Well, I presumed it was a self-portrait, but...

APPRAISER:
You're, you are correct.

GUEST:
Okay.

APPRAISER:
It is indeed a self-portrait. I'm not sure if the print is a self-portrait, but the drawing is definitely a self-portrait. And I think it's incredibly beautiful and sensitively drawn.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
The drawing isn't dated, and I'm not quite sure what the date is, but I would say it's probably executed somewhere in the 1920s or 1930s. There's a big difference in value between her prints and her drawings. The auction price for the print might be somewhere around $1,000 to $1,200.

GUEST:
Uh-huh.

APPRAISER:
Some of Kollwitz's rare prints have brought as much as $150,000 in recent years, but this particular print is not as rare, and has come up for sale multiple times and always brought under $5,000. Self-portraits by her have brought as much as $250,000.

GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.

APPRAISER:
But this drawing is a little bit less developed than ones that have brought that much money.

GUEST:
Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER:
Even so, I'm going to say that if this drawing were to come to auction right now in the current market, and with the current demand for her work, I think it would bring somewhere in the neighborhood of about $50,000.

GUEST:
Oh, come on now.

APPRAISER:
It's true.

GUEST:
(laughs)

APPRAISER:
You saw it on the ROADSHOW.