Antiques Roadshow guest sobs after discovering surprising value of 'damaged' art

22 August 2023 , 06:39

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A woman cried after finding out the value of a painting in her home on the Antiques Roadshow (Image: PBS)

An American Antiques Roadshow fan was watching an episode of the popular PBS series. In it, a man announced in the feedback boot h that he had discovered what he thought was a genuine Edouard Cortez painting was actually a fake.

A thought struck the woman, and she ran downstairs to what she described as a "damaged" painting on the first floor of her house. She packed it up, and she hit the road, bringing the piece with her to the nearest roadshow location.

The painting had "Edouard Cortez" written on it, and she decided to take a chance to see if her painting was the real deal.

The woman couldn't believe the valuation (PBS)

It turned out that it was — and not only was it authentic, it was worth anywhere between $30,000 and $50,000 (£23,490 to £39,150), the expert on that episode announced.

"I think there's no question that this work is in fact by Edouard Cortez," he stated before telling the shocked woman the approximate valuation.

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Instantly, she burst into tears, overwhelmed by her discovery. The painting had been hanging on her wall for over four decades, and she had thought it was damaged because of a strange aspect on a street in the image.

She explained that she looked up Cortez and found out that he was known for his Parisian street scenes, having been born in 1882 and dying in 1969.

What she didn't find through her research, however, was that Cortez used a technique that set him apart from other artists — he would take a pin and push it into the canvas to establish a vanishing point, the expert later told the woman. That helped him determine the perspective.

"I thought it was a flaw," the woman said, but the expert assured her that it wasn't. "If you look at the lines, they all converge and come to this point," he told her.

He added: "Now that, of course, is not conclusive, but there's a gallery in New York, and there's another gentleman who will authenticate this work."

It was unclear what the woman intended to do with the piece by the end of the segment, but one thing did become clear — she was walking out of that roadshow with a much higher net worth than she thought she had when she walked in.

Jeremiah Hassel