Paintings & Drawings

German Relief-carved Plaques, ca. 1890

Appraisal: German Relief-carved Plaques, ca. 1890

Transcript

GUEST: So in 1921, my great-grandmother came from Poessneck, Germany, and she brought these items, along with a few other items from home, that her grandfather had carved out of wood.

APPRAISER: First of all, let's talk about what they are. These are relief-carved panels, and I think they date from around 1870, 1880. Your grandfather, or your great-grandfather... Is...

GUEST: It would have been my great-great-grandfather.

APPRAISER: Great-grand, I was going to say.

GUEST: (laughs)

APPRAISER: There's a lot of greats in there.

GUEST: Yes!

APPRAISER: He, he was very highly skilled, just the way he did the mountains and everything. The fact that he was from Germany sort of puzzled me a little bit with, on this bigger one.

GUEST: Exactly.

APPRAISER: Because that's a Norwegian flag.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: But sometimes, they did things like this from prints.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: The images were print-inspired. They weren't necessarily something that they just sort of took out of nature.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: But your great-great-grandfather was, was way better than average because of the way he did the mountains, the way he did the people's faces, and everything is so animated.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: And I especially love the one up front here that has the trees.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: The other thing I like about this stuff is that it has the original finish.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: The frame is, is integral to the whole thing.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: It's-- the frame is not added.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: The whole thing is one solid piece of wood.

GUEST: One piece, yeah.

APPRAISER: Well, personally, I'd hang them in my house.