Antiques Roadshow; Appraisal

The painting is by Joseph Now he and it's an eighteen eighty eight painting right. That's the sign down here. Jay No he 18 88 now. Joseph No he wasn't primarily a painter was you know that's probably the least of his known actually buttes he was a lawyer he was a legislator he was an educator and he was the publisher of a newspaper. He was in the legislature for 20 years he produced a newspaper critical of the rebellion and the overthrow of the government and actually was landed in jail from Iran Eighteen ninety three ninety five and so severely cut tuberculosis and died in 96. But he was a native born Hawaiian and he went to some of the missionary schools there and at the Hilo a car boarding school. Clearly we see these two snow capped peaks here and those are. There the two mountains on the Big Island Mayor mani cam on a lower right let's move volcanoes there. And then there's this bay here is probably where it's the Hilo Bay on the big island right and then this island there. It's called Coconut Island.

He was an amateur painting and you look at these figures here that's one thing to look at. Sometimes the anatomy and the perspective isn't always right the figures there are. Little bit stiff. Yeah see he's he's a good artist not a great I says good sense of the landscape. But he's not a academically trained artist had some training but not much. But it's important because he's the first Hawaiian born to paint in this western style. He was known for doing volcanoes much like jewels tavern and others who came here. There are many paintings by him I think you probably know we only know of five about five you know right. And from what we understand is this is either the largest or one of the two largest ones. Were to get it. Well we were on our way from our property up in volcano down to Hilo town to go to a museum and we stopped on the way at our favorite antiques gallery and saw this in the little display area. Couldn't quite make out the artist's name but got a fix on it and we had to rush off so we went

down to the museum and as we were looking through some things we saw his name there. My husband Bruce and I we looked at each other and he said the painting and we got on the telephone called the antique shop and asked them to hold it and so we zoom back up there and we got the painting. How much did you pay for it. I am not positive but I think we paid about $400 for $40. That was in the. 70s. It was in this condition when you got to know it was very dark and it was grazed. Oh painting had cracked and everything in. So a friend of ours he sent it to his Ristori in San Francisco I think it was a summer in California. And so we did have him do that. That has an effect on value on anything. But when you're talking about five or six pieces that are known that we sort of. Forgive some of the condition issues because they're so rare. You're in for what you paid for the restoration. Probably between six and nine hundred dollars.

I consulted with one of my colleagues who is from the islands. And because you have the Hilo Bay you have money he called the Hawaiian gold for him in the art market recently works by him have sold as much as $70000 I think if this were to be up at auction today I would cry put an estimate of 100 one hundred fifty thousand dollars on are you kidding. It's a great thing. But it's really important. This is a national treasure Evans amazing thing to have here and I need an alliance so you know one of the reasons we bought it. Oh it's great. Oh gosh I've got to do is keep good care of it and put it in a very safe place and people are walking. We're very proud to have this. Thank you so much. All right. Well thanks for bring it in and made my day. Thank you.