A clip from an episode of the “Antiques Roadshow” went viral on social media after a participant of the show discovered the true value of a family painting. The episode was set in Texas and aired in 2012.
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The participant had a frame depicting a man beside a bucket. He recounted that his great-grandparents purchased the painting in 1930, and since then, it had been forgotten by the family.
Appraiser Colleene Fesko surprised the owner of the frame by revealing it was an oil painting by Mexican painter Diego Rivera, born in 1886. Rivera painted the piece in 1904, which had been missing since 1930 according to records from Mexico City. The piece is called “El Albañil.”
“The painting is by a very important artist, and it’s a very beautiful and significant painting. I would be assigning a retail estimate to the piece between $800,000 and $1 million,” disclosed Colleene Fesko to the frame’s owner.
“El Albañil” was rediscovered in 1996 when a farmer handed it over to the curator of the San Antonio Art Museum. The curator informed that the piece was a fake, but later it was discovered to be a legitimate painting by Diego Rivera.
“El Albañil” was loaned to the San Antonio Art Museum and the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art in 1998. The latest estimates value the piece between $1.2 and $2.2 million. “El Albañil” can be viewed at the San Antonio Art Museum, where it has been on display for many years.
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