GUEST: Oh, it's a van Dyck.

And in the 1800s, it hung
in a museum in Germany.

In the early 1900s, it was
transferred to my grandmother.

So it's been in the family for
125 years, somewhere around
there.

APPRAISER: Give or take.

Yeah.

GUEST: And it's on
four parchment panels.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

You told me your family
name was Habisch?

GUEST: Habisch, yes.

APPRAISER: Habisch was
the German collector.

GUEST: That was the family
name of my grandmother.

APPRAISER: So, what we have is a
purported drawing by Sir Anthony
van Dyck...

GUEST: Correct.

APPRAISER: ...who was one of the
more noted artists of the 17th
century.

He was a prodigy in the
Netherlands in, at, at 18 years
old.

By the 1630s, he was called to
work for the king in England.

He sort of had reached the peak,
uh, in terms of, uh, artistry
and portraiture at the time.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: This is a charcoal
drawing and it appears to be an
ecclesiastical portrait,

to me.

It is on four sheets.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: You can see
the dividing lines here.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: Uh, they are joined,
and it is glued down to another
sheet of paper.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Now, van Dyck was
very famous in his day.

And one of the odd things to me
is the idea of him joining four
sheets of paper and drawing

on it.

That strikes me as a red flag.

GUEST: Right, mm-hmm,
I understand.

APPRAISER: That, that, that an
artist of his stature would do
that.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: The drawing itself
has passages that are very
strong and also ones that seem

very thick...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...and undetermined.

And there's not the, the usual
bravura that you get with a van
Dyck sketch.

GUEST: Hm.

APPRAISER: The positive side is
that your family, the Habisch
family...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...were
noted collectors.

Right.

And had built a collection
in Kassel, Germany...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...during the late
1800s that was widely exhibited.

And in 1899, over a thousand of
the works in the collection were
sold at auction...

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: ...by the
estate in Stuttgart.

This obviously was not.

It continued down to
you in the family.

GUEST: Mm-hmm, right.

APPRAISER: It strikes me as odd
that these works would have been
shown and this potentially

published and on
museum checklists.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: And later scholars in
the 20th century putting
together the catalogues of

van Dyck's works...

GUEST: Hm.

APPRAISER: ...would not
have known about it.

But then again, perhaps this was
just a sketch that was missed...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...and
stayed in the family.

Now, the big question is...
(both laugh) ...if it's
correct...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...what is it worth,
if we can determine it is by
Anthony van Dyck?

GUEST: Right.

Right.

APPRAISER: If we have something
that is a contemporaneous
imitator of van Dyck's, you're

looking at a very strong
portrait this size, from the
17th century.

We can determine perhaps who
the sitter is down the line.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Maybe
even the artist.

That would be in the $5,000 to
$10,000, perhaps even up to
$15,000,

GUEST: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...price
range at auction.

Now if, doing more
work on this...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...and having it
established with authorship to
van Dyck...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...this would be a
drawing worth about $100,000 to
$150,000 at auction.

GUEST: Wow, mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So it, it certainly
warrants further work.

GUEST: It's something
regardless, yeah.

APPRAISER: It has
promises, to me...

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: ...based so much on
the family history, and the fact
that other van Dyck

drawings and paintings from this
collector are in museum
collections...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...and have been
accepted as works by van Dyck.

But it just needs...

More research.

More scholarship, more research.

GUEST: Yeah.

Thank you very much, yeah.

APPRAISER: Thank you
for bringing it in.

GUEST: Yeah, I enjoyed it.