Antiques Roadshow

my wife before I met her was going around with this guy here it is in California now he's married and well I'm going out of her life ready it was an off-and-on relationship they had a falling out they had a number falling out but during one particular period he thought a clever way to get back with her would be to give her a Picasso autographed if he could get it so he wrote to the famous columnist for The Herald Tribune and for the Philadelphia bulletin art buchwald asked Art Buchwald in a very funny letter begged him please get Picasso's autograph for me that would make my girlfriend very happy and we'd back together well there was a slow time in Paris of The Herald Tribune so our Buckwald decided he would do a column about this and he said maybe Picasso will come through on this well sure enough Douglas Duncan a photographer friend of buckwalds and also a very close friend of Picasso's was with Picasso and he read the column in the Paris newspaper and he read it to Picasso who was painting because they supposedly put down his paintbrushes set hand me a piece of paper and some pencils and he did this colored drawing here and he signed it poor miss Gloria Siegel that was my wife's maiden name who signed it Picasso and then a telegram came to Harvey broski back in Philadelphia the newspapers all the newspapers were talking about this it was the first time that Fastow had ever done anything like this the irony of it of course is that he's out of the picture now right and therefore I married into a family with a Picasso it's a wonderful color crayon drawing by Picasso you see it is dated in the lower-right 1958 and it was done in con France the dedication to your future wife and you can see also that has full marks on it to be put into a letter it's not exactly true that it's uncommon for Picasso to have done this specifically it's more uncommon for him to have done something like this to help a man try to regain the love of a woman but Picasso actually drew a lot of designs like this on the front of books and exhibition covers for shows that he did so we do see them quite often we have sold checks in the amount of $1 that the Casa would get do it drawing on the back cash the check and so the cheque would go back to the person who'd have a Picasso drawing so he was in the practice of doing quick drawings like this and you know the envelope that this came in which I cannot find is misplaced the stationery was Picasso's personal watermark station he could hold it up at the light and you could see his name actually you said it you had you had taped it on the back of the frame we wanted to keep them together of course they didn't wind up together so it was taped on here right it was taped on there and it had the colored pencils using the front like as little stripes around the edge so you don't you don't know where that I'm gonna put it somewhere we're going to look for it okay so you actually have two drawings by Picasso you can only find one at the movies act so have you had any occasion to have the drawing appraised or many years ago I took it to a traveling clinic we came around to different hotels Casa was still alive and at the time it was estimated to be six out worth about $6,000 and they said there's one good thing about it was all this authenticity the background documentation really does help this and really any other work of art like this at auction today I would say a drawing like this as a value of about 12,000 to $18,000 with all that background documentation and the story that you have for it with all the characters who are involved in this art buchwald and Douglas Duncan I would put its auction value at 15,000 to 20,000 dollars it's good to know I can't wait to tell my wife and even that value doesn't mean so much and that you got the lady that's right that's the most important thing you