Antiques Roadshow

GUEST

My mom was a private beautician on Long Island, New York. And went to all these states and did the peoples hair. And they, in turn, gave her gifts, presents over the years because she did it for about 50 years. And, in turn, my mom gave it to me.

APPRAISER

So, these were the sorts of things she received as tips.

GUEST

As tips, yes.

APPRAISER

For her styling.

GUEST

Yes, that's right.

APPRAISER

The artist who made this is Pierre Renoir, one of the most famous Impressionist painters during the late 19th century. And this is an etching that he made of his son, Claude Renoir. It looks like a little girl, but it's actually his son. You have some condition problems, with the print, which are visible. There's a number of small dots, that's something known as foxing. And, if I open this up, You can see that there's foxing throughout the entire page. And also this heavy stain, which is called time stain. And that's usually caused by something being exposed to light. Very strong light, for a long period of time. That's what happened here. On the flip side of the coin, you have what is the first printing, or the earliest printing of this etching. And you can tell that by the edition number right here in pencil. It's numbered 19/100 in pencil. After this was printed, maybe a thousand more were made. And they weren't numbered in pencil and they were on a smaller sheet of paper. In better condition, if it were to come up at auction, it would bring close to $4,000 or $6,000. In this condition, it would probably sell for around $3,000. The good news is, all the condition defects that you have here are reversible. I would estimate the cleaning on this to be between $300 and $500. It's very close to being a $4,000 to $6,000 print.

GUEST

Wow! That's amazing

APPRAISER

Surprised to hear that? Is that good news?

GUEST

Well, yeah. That's very good news. It sure is.