Posted on 12/05/2004 11:14:11 AM PST by Lijahsbubbe
Fans of "The Antiques Roadshow" know the fantasy. A dusty artifact in an attic turns out to be collectible and valuable. Everyone goes home satisfied that the stock they place in a family treasure is justified.
Two Twin Cities siblings are living the dream, having recently learned that an 1860s painting that long hung over their parents' fireplace in Eau Claire, Wis., is worth between $1 million and $1.5 million — possibly more.
"It's really an awesome thing," said Bob Culver of White Bear Township about the painting by Albert Bierstadt. "This art world is something none of us is familiar with."
On Saturday, Culver and his sister, Mary Schuck of Stillwater, along with the family of their late brother, will sell a mountain landscape that the family has owned since 1930. The painting is being auctioned by Susanin's in Chicago.
Milwaukee art appraiser Janice Kuhn, who made the first professional appraisal of the work, notes the symbolism of Manifest Destiny: the rugged but open landscape there for the taking, the wagon train in strong light juxtaposed against the "noble savage" in fading light on the left side, passively observing their progression.
Interest is already high, said Shlomi Rabi, head of premier and specialty auction services for Susanin's. "It is absolutely spectacular," he said. "For one, the size of it is impressive and almost overwhelming."
The painting's size — 5 feet wide by 3 feet high — is one reason the family is parting with it. "When (mom) died, we needed to find a place to put the painting," Bob Culver said. "None of us had room for a big painting like that."
The painting has its roots in Eau Claire, where the Culver siblings grew up. When Bierstadt fell from fashion back East, he worked the Chicago-to-Twin Cities circuit, said Bob Culver's wife, Signet. Bierstadt longed to be in "the millionaires' circle," she said.
Many of his paintings ended up with Wisconsin owners, including Joseph Thorp, a lumber baron who purchased the painting for his Eau Claire mansion. When he sold the mansion, the painting went with it.
In 1930, Bob and Mary's grandfather got the painting in lieu of unpaid rent from the family of a deceased tenant. The painting was treated as a castoff and relegated to various attics and buildings in Eau Claire for the next 40 years.
"People didn't have any idea at that time that the painting had any value," Bob Culver said. "That painting really bounced around from one building to another for storage."
The frame, however, caught the eye of his father, Homer, who used it for a window display in his Eau Claire shoe store. The painting stayed in an attic.
In the early 1970s, Homer Culver asked an artist who was renting studio space above the store whether he'd heard of Bierstadt.
"He got excited and couldn't wait for Dad to pull the painting out," Bob Culver said.
Suddenly aware of its value, his father brought the painting home, where for years it hung above a massive flagstone fireplace amid spotlights. An art professor from the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire regularly trooped students through their living room for a look.
But the family, which Culver confesses knew nothing about art, loved the painting for itself.
"It was beautiful," Schuck said. "I loved it. It was just a beautiful painting, and it was just perfect on that fireplace. It just brought the room together."
As their parents aged, they considered selling the painting, knowing their three children likely would do so after they died. But the children urged them to keep it as long as they wanted.
"Bob's dad took great pride in that picture," Signet Culver said. "They dearly loved that painting."
His father died in 1982, and after his mother's death in 1995, the family lent the painting to an art center in Oshkosh, Wis., where it was displayed until being shipped to Chicago.
The Culvers held onto the painting out of affection, but their timing was providential. Art collecting is back in favor, and values have skyrocketed.
Bierstadt's work is often exhibited with art by George Catlin and Frederic Remington. Sotheby's sold a Bierstadt landscape of Yosemite National Park in 2003 for $7 million, but the prices haven't fazed Bob Culver.
"By that time, we were accustomed to thinking of it as a masterpiece," he said.
The Culvers would welcome the money, which they'd use to restore savings depleted after a near-fatal car accident in 1997.
Still, they're sad to see the family masterpiece go. Bob Culver hopes to get professional photos of the painting that for so long dominated the landscape of his parents' home.
"We appreciated the realness of it," he said. "It definitely was a very fine piece of art. We enjoyed talking about it, to each other, and displaying it."
we all have some sort of treasure lying around - we just found a castaway small oil in our closet that is old Philadelphia, worth about 1500.00...and since it was in the closet so long, I don't think we're gonna miss it! lol...
Really. That's cool. I know nothing about art unless it says Rockwell or Van Gogh on it! LOL
I had a client with a similar sitiation about 10 years ago..and he had the same problem that these people are about to run into head on..the IRS...it has to do with estate taxes, and income taxes....When you die..you get a step up in the value of the item to the appraisal at the time of death..and it you had simple wills, back at that time ( when the parents died) they could have left $1,200,000 to their kids estate tax free. What has happened now, is that the kids inherited the painting at a cost basis of ZERO, so if they sell it for $1,000,000, they owe capital gains tax on one million...if they had inherited it at the stepped up basis of one million, then sold it for that amount, the tax due is ZERO..hey can try to spend a lot of money to reopen the estate, and amend it..but it won't work...the IRS is adaman on that..
It even applies to museums: I remember reading some years ago that a small NYC museum found in its storage piles a small scribbled drawing which was later attributed to Michelangelo. Price tag, IIRC - 12 million.
ROFL--that photo looks like a bad SNL skit.
But they obviously knew this was a valuable/important painting, even if they didn't know it was worth a million bucks. I mean, they had art students regularly come to their house to see it. So, this is not quite an "antiques roadshow" experience, man I love that show, it gives me hope that some (one!) of my "dust catchers" is worth $$.
I know I'm silly!
My friend does much better work:
http://www.stevecepello.com
This is my favorite:
http://www.stevecepello.com/12.html
Were cigarettes even around in the 1860s? They could be cigar burns though. I think the machine used to make cigarettes was invented in the 1880s or so.
There have always been rolling papers...
I'm struck by what I just wrote..!! Ha!! Sounds like a "FarSide" caption...LOL!!!
I think he died about ten years ago from lymphoma.
Will fetch closer to $3mm.
I'd get rid of that thing right now. Possesion of that map could prove that you're a Yankee spy.
Dad always said...never say never, and nuttin ain't always. : )
FRegards,
Didn't know that...if so, he's still in syndication then...on a public T.V. station here in OK
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.