Gustav Mahler Letter & Portrait
APPRAISER: So what did you bring to ANTIQUES ROADSHOW today?
GUEST: Two things of the composer Gustav Mahler, Austrian composer--a letter that he wrote, and an etching that was made by an Austrian etcher, Arthur Paunzen. These were given to me 40 years ago, just as I was about to conduct the Mahler Second Symphony for my very first time. By a...
APPRAISER: Oh, so you're a, you're a conductor, too?
GUEST: I'm... yes. They were given to me by a dear friend that has been a prized possession for the past 40 years. I think Mahler was the last great Germanic composer. We had a translation at one time, but it became lost.
APPRAISER: I am not fluent in German, but we did get a translation, which I can...
GUEST: Oh, really?
APPRAISER: Which I can read to you. Now, a lot of times with letters we want to know who the, who the addressee is, and in this case, we don't, we don't know that...
GUEST: Just... right.
APPRAISER: ...because it just starts. It just says "Dear friend!" "Dear friend! Did I reply to you? I don't remember, but it seems that way. In any case, I would like to take the opportunity to tell you, perhaps again, that you have made me very happy with your lovely letter. My dear friend, one should frequently allow oneself joy. So, otherwise this 'life,' this miserable"-- and he puts life in quotes-- "would be deadly boring. So I send you my best regards. Mannheim is not an option. However, I definitely hope to see you again in the summer, not before the beginning of August. Best wishes, Mahler."
GUEST: Oh, wonderful.
APPRAISER: What caught my eye was the monogram at the top.
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: And I found that it was designed by Alfred Roller, a Viennese Secessionist artist who worked along Klimt.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Met Mahler in about 1902...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...when-when Mahler was at the Vienna State Opera. And Mahler wanted to work with him and hired him as a set director.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: And so they produced about 20 operas together. There are people who think that the initials that you see so stylistically joined there are "GM" For Gustav Mahler.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: And others who think it's "AM" for his wife Alma.
GUEST: Alma.
APPRAISER: Um, and I guess it's... it is a little unclear, um, but it helps us date this letter. Because the two of them didn't meet until 1902, we can say that the letter is sometime after 1902 and before his death, which was 1911.
GUEST: Eleven.
APPRAISER: I mean, he only lived to be 50.
GUEST: 50, mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: Yeah. The Vienna State Opera job he got at 38. He converted to Catholicism...
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: ...just before taking that job. He's Jewish and he converts to Catholicism...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...because of the antisemitism...
GUEST: Exactly.
APPRAISER: That was... that he was experiencing.
GUEST: Yeah.
APPRAISER: We know that the portrait is posthumous. I think it was done in about 1926. It's an etching. It's signed by the artist here in pencil. At auction, it has a value of about $300.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: There aren't a lot of Mahler letters. I would place an auction estimate on your Mahler letter of $6,000 to $9,000.
GUEST: Oh, that's wonderful. And it's a keepsake. It'll stay at... with us and with our heirs.
$6,300 - $9,300 Auction
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Understanding Our Appraisals
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Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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