Jacob Maentel Watercolor, ca. 1810
GUEST:
Well, it's been in my family. I know my grandparents had it, and my grandfather remembers that his mother passed it to him.
APPRAISER:
And the family probably started out in Pennsylvania. I know there's relatives in Pennsylvania. Because this is the work of a very well known and very collected artist named Jacob Maentel, who's one of those mysterious figures in American folk art. He was born in Kassel, Germany, in 1763. He was supposed to have been Napoleon's secretary. But what he really did was paint portraits of people in Pennsylvania and in Indiana through his 100-year life.
GUEST:
Wow!
APPRAISER:
This is a particularly characteristic and wonderful example of his work. He did primarily people in profile views. Over here, we have some of the farm buildings done in that wonderful Pennsylvania stone, and we have a typical kind of Pennsylvania landscape in the background, and then we have these fanciful roses which are twining up the tree trunk, which are undoubtedly meant to signify that this is a young woman who is in bloom. Done probably some time in the early 19th century, around 1810.
APPRAISER:
Leigh, you're out in the marketplace on a regular basis, so you want to talk about what the values would be for something like this?
APPRAISER:
The market for Maentel is quite strong. Really, it has to do with condition, and that's a really important factor actually here. What I'm going to do is put these white gloves on so that I can take it out of the frame because this frame is probably from the early 20th century.
GUEST:
Is the frame original to the...
APPRAISER:
The frame is not original. So this would look nice in a nice, early painted frame or a gilt frame, don't you think, Nancy?
APPRAISER:
Right, yeah, something very simple.
APPRAISER:
So here, I just want to point out, Amy, that we have inpainting on the piece, and you can see it right in here. Do you see that, Amy, that white chalky area? It doesn't go over the face, but it comes up to the face. Also there's quite a bit of tearing and cracking that's actually been repaired. Do you see these cracks?
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And if we look at the back, we can see that someone actually carefully tried to repair it at one time. We look under here. Do you see those old repairs? So it really... It's also been folded actually four times. One, two, three, four. It still, though, is important. I will say that a pair of watercolors by Maentel just this past summer sold in Pennsylvania for $678,000.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
They were much bigger and they were interior scenes. This picture in this condition is worth about $25,000.
GUEST:
Wow!
APPRAISER:
Are you happy with that?
GUEST:
Yes, that's very surprising. It's a pretty little thing. I didn't think it'd be worth that.
Appraisal Details
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