Eastern European Oil Painting?

Its a form popular in the early 1900's as souvenirs. This particular one isn't particularly well crafted. The frame is nice, though. There are lots of these around and they were done by a lot of painters, none of whom is well known.

I hope you paid around $100 for it, they're seldom worth more than a couple of hundred.

Egg on face. I saw two other painting that could have been painted by the same artist though both were of solo pipe smokers. Their values were $3,000 to $4000 each, insurance estimate.

I missed it by a mile.

Thank you for your reply. Since we are amateurs in the art world, do you have any advise on how to authenticate this painting in that we can't find a signature? Additionally, we obtained a couple of other paintings from the same individual and were wondering if you would be interested in taking a look at pictures of them as well. If so, could we send you pictures via email? Attaching pictures to posts on able2know has proven rather difficult. Thank you for your assistance.

Believe it or not the signature isn't so important in that this level art isn't dependent on a specific artist to maintain a high value. What an appraiser is looking for is the quality of the work itself and how popular the genre of the work is.

I was right about the age and the purpose of this art. It was never meant to be in a museum, it really was a souvenir. But it is one that a lot of people like and it was well painted and done in a painterly hand.

Its like those seascape oils that became popular in the forties that ended up over everyone's grandparents sofa. They were literally around $25 new and are now worth in excess of $500, some well more than $1,000. You'd be surprised how you can pick these off in thrifts and garage sales, though nowhere as easily ten or fifteen years ago.

I would be glad to look at your art.

Wat you need to look for is art that talks to you. On an amateur level it wouldn't be wise to buy "autographs" - paintings of names done early enough and unknown enough you can buy economically. Good art WILL talk to you and so will some mediocre stuff until you get your eye developed.

You need to look at art in every gallery and every museum. You might want to take few painting lessons to understand the technical stuff like what oil or acrylic looks like, how technology changed over the years in stretchers and canvas, get a small art history book or two.

And only buy what you like. Watching both versions of Antique Roadshow is very helpful. Thats where I saw the two painting that are similar to your own painting.

I'll post my e-mail in your PM.