Guests on "Antiques Roadshow" often arrive with a rough idea about the value of items that they possess, only to be left speechless by what experts reveal. While some guests drop down to the floor, a few handle it slowly and silently. This is what happened when a guest who brought a supposedly 'haunted painting' to the show received a massive six-figure appraisal.
Bringing the old oil painting to the show, the guest explained that he knew a bit about its history. "I know there's an artist by the name of Leonora Carrington and that she lived in Mexico," he said. He further shared that the artist originally came from Europe and settled down in Mexico after World War II.
"Much more than that I don't know, except I know she was a surrealist," the guest added. The expert, Alan Fausel, chimed in by agreeing that she was a surrealist and she often had nightmares which she translated onto the canvas to create paintings like the one the guest had. The guest further mentioned that the artist was born in England and began painting in her early 20s when she became involved with German painter and sculptor Max Ernst. "She did run off with Max Ernst. She's a student and then ran off to France and after the war, she suffered a nervous breakdown and I think these pieces are very personal," the expert added.
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The expert further explained that the paintings could be a part of her visions, nightmares, and the the imagery in her life. "And you look at this piece, it's all very macabre and surreal," Fausel said.
He pointed out that the central piece appears to be a "wolf-like figure with multiple arms and legs all around it." He further showed that the figure disappears into the bushes with bats looming around it. He also added that there are some fellows with a spider at the bottom. "Overall, she had a fairly normal life it seemed but she was haunted by these visions," Fausel revealed.
Talking about the painting's ownership, the guest shared that it was originally purchased by his parents who had a large house and an extensive collection of art. "When they got this, I fell in love with it, and finally when they downsized, they knew that it was the one piece of all their artwork that I really adored and so they gave it to me and that was about 40 years ago," the guest stated. He additionally shared that his parents brought the painting from Mexico after acquiring it for $7,000 to $10,000, a value which was soon going to be dwarfed.
Coming to the numbers, Fausel said that the painting was a fabulous example of the artist's work. "Now, she painted in a variety of different mediums. This is a piece on canvas so it looks like it's primarily oil," he noted. Adding some insight into the market value of Carrington's work, the expert said it recently went up after the artist's death in 2011. "Her works are sold mainly in Latin American sales so there's a lot of interest in those," the expert suggested.
Fausel estimated that at an auction, the painting could potentially go for a whopping "$200,000 to $300,000." Despite the mammoth appraisal, the guest appeared quite calm as he took a second to process things.
After a brief moment, the guest only nodded by saying, "They (his parents) bought well. Amazing."
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