Antiques Roadshow

This past weekend I was able to catch a bit of a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow. The bit that I caught featured a woman named Susan with a painting by Canadian artist Cornelius Krieghoff. Susan claimed that she had no idea of the worth of the painting, only that it had value as a family heirloom, being passed down three generations. Here's an image of the work:

The piece was appraised at between $200,000 - $350,000 USD. And you can watch the appraisal here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200901A05.html After Susan found out the estimated worth at auction, she was asked in an exit interview what she would do with the painting when she returned home. Her response was that it would simply "go back up on the wall" in her home, but that now she might appreciate it a bit more. Here's her response in full: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/video/AI_200901A05.html

This episode and the exit interview raise a number of interesting questions. First, with the existence of the internet, how could one not know about Krieghoff and his works, and by extension their relative worth? Second, if you suddenly had a painting potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, would you leave it in your home, or would you sell it? Thirdly, does the fair market value (the price at which a seller is willing to sell and a buyer is willing to buy) make a painting more worthy of appreciation? Feel free to answer these questions with a friend, or here, in the comments section.

If you'd like more information on Krieghoff, you can investigate Wikipedia, The Canadian Encyclopedia Online, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and of course Sotheby's for some recent auction prices achieved.