GUEST: My mother-in-law gave it to me years ago. I saw it on her wall, and I really admired it. And I told her that it reminded me of Charleston, South Carolina, where I had visited with her son on my honeymoon. And she told me that was where she had bought it. I think she said she bought it in a street fair, but she bought it in the 1950s.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm.

GUEST: But I just thought she was charming. When you look at her face, and her flowers, and she has such strength and purpose. I love it.

APPRAISER: I do, too. The artist is Elizabeth O'Neill Verner. It's very hard to make out. The "Elizabeth" is the easiest part to make out of the signature.

GUEST: Right?

APPRAISER: But it is all down here. So, she was born in 1883, lived most of her life in Charleston, traveled a bit.

GUEST: Uh-huh.

APPRAISER: But she studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and was married with a couple of children. But her husband died in 1925.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: She said up till 1925, she had two hobbies, art and her love of Charleston, and she was able to combine the two of them into a profession. And she really had to make a living as an artist after her husband died. She also was known as doing very sensitive portraits of African Americans.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And particularly did numerous renditions of these flower sellers.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And at one point, the mayor wanted to ban them from being able to sell the flowers on the street, and the artist actually fought on their behalf for them to be allowed to remain. But her love for Charleston really extended to the architecture, and particularly, old buildings that were in decay or about to be torn down. And she really did a lot for preserving the old buildings through her art, and she was sort of considered the matriarch of the Charleston Renaissance.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: And after she died, a lot of her work was actually left to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: But at the end of her life, what she was most proud of was not so much her art, but the work she had done as an architectural preservationist. Which I thought was interesting.

GUEST: Mm-hmm... I understand that yes.

APPRAISER: She also invented a certain technique, which was layering the pastel on top of silk. Mm-hmm. And then mounting the silk on board. And she called it Verner Color. Although she did a lot of pastels on silk, I don't think that's what you have.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: But we would have to have had it unframed it to be positive. Have you ever had this appraised?

GUEST: No.

APPRAISER: Do you want to make a guess as to the value?

GUEST: I, I thought it might be worth maybe $500 at the most. I don't know. My mother-in-law was not a wealthy woman, you know.

APPRAISER: Well, these are very sensitive, dignified portraits, and they're held in high regard.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: Now, there is a condition issue, which we can see here, with these numerous polka dots.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: I think, in this condition, it might be worth about $15,000 in a retail gallery, but if you were to have it conserved, it might be as much as $25,000.

GUEST: Wow. Wow! (chuckles) I guess I'll have to say a little thank you up to the... (chuckles) Thank you so much!

APPRAISER: Oh, you're so welcome.

GUEST: Mystery solved! I love it, it's excellent.