GUEST: We purchased
this at an open house.

An artist was selling some of
her own artwork, and some of her
collection, and she had this

available, and my wife and I
loved it immediately, and we
bought it right away.

We just thought it was
such a sweet painting.

The woman who we purchased it
from, this was the first
painting that she bought when
she

started her art
career in New York.

APPRAISER: Bessie Lowenhaupt
is one of my favorite artists.

I'm from St. Louis, as was she.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: So it was a real
treat to see this come in.

Bessie Lowenhaupt was born in
1881 in Mount Vernon, Indiana.

She studied at the
Chicago Art Institute.

She got married and had five
children, and didn't become a
practicing artist, really,

until she was 75 years old.

The painting is oil on canvas,
certainly dated circa 1960.

Characteristic of her paintings
is the balance between
abstraction and reality, and
also

the planes of color that she
would use to create this
harmonious balance in her
compositions.

She also would use one
dominant color in her artwork.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And she called that
the master of ceremonies.

GUEST: (chuckles) Okay.

APPRAISER: There were always
muted tones-- grays, browns,
earth tones-- but that was

characteristic of her work.

She had only one commercial
exhibit, in 1968, at the end of
her life.

Uh, that was the
year that she died.

It was at Martin Schweig
Galleries in St. Louis.

She didn't ever sign her
paintings, because she felt that
that was presumptuous.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: And she often
didn't title her paintings.

But, uh, you have two
titles, in fact...

GUEST: Two titles.

APPRAISER: ...on the
back of this canvas.

This one, on the original tag on
the back, with her address, is
titled "Girl Standing

for a Fitting," but it was
titled a, again, and what was
the title?

GUEST: One...

Right.

"Woman Descending Stairs."

APPRAISER: Maybe the reason she
didn't want to title her work is
because she wanted the

viewer to take their own idea
away from the experience.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Was this the frame
that you bought it in?

GUEST: We had this
recently reframed.

There wasn't a right
angle on the frame.

It was sort of a, a
weird configuration.

APPRAISER: She always
created her own frames.

(chuckles) She would go to a
furniture store and pick up
scraps of lumber.

Poplar wood is what she would
use, and they would always be
very thin strips.

GUEST: Absolutely.

APPRAISER: And sometimes she
would paint them to go with the
painting.

I think something like this,
easily, at auction, would sell
between $4,000 and $6,000.

GUEST: That's great, thank
you, I appreciate that.

It's certainly more
than we paid for it.

APPRAISER: Yeah, do you
mind divulging that price?

GUEST: Uh, we paid $400 for it.

APPRAISER: Wow.

GUEST: Yeah, about
a dozen years ago.

APPRAISER: I was I was there!

GUEST: Yeah. (both laugh)

APPRAISER: If you had the
original frame, it might make a
slight difference.