The drawing a Lehigh Valley antique shop purchased for $12 could explode in value after scholars examine it.
That’s because it may have been created by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir around the 1880s, according to Heidi Markow, a certified appraiser and the co-owner of the antique shop Salvage Goods in Easton.
It portrays a nude woman, reportedly using charcoal. Markow believes the subject to be Renoir’s wife Aline Charigot.
“He had a fascination with the female body,” Markow said. “One of his quotes that I read that really stuck to me and really made me look at this Renoir in a different light was he said that his work wasn’t done until he could pinch it. And when you look at this, it makes sense because it’s so real and so beautiful to detail that you could definitely pinch it.”
She added that around the 1880s, or Renoir’s “Ingres period,” refer to when Renoir took inspiration from fellow French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.
“To me, it’s a masterpiece,” Markow said of the drawing.
The antique shop will hold a public viewing for the art 6-8 p.m. Sunday at 24 S. Third St. in Easton, she said.
Markow acquired the art in an auction in January in Montgomery County alongside her business partners Richard Higgins and her son Carl Paolina.
“I did not touch it, I didn’t look at it, I didn’t know anything about it — I just said, ‘I want this,’” she recalled, having found the art next to a box of liquor. “‘I want this, I want this, I want this.’”
It wasn’t until she returned home later that she spotted Renoir’s supposed signature and realized the art could be his.
“It’s just definitely an exciting find for us,” she said.
Based on the drawing’s reported provenance, or record of ownership indicated by stickers on the art, Markow believes the European art importer Samuel Fields and Co. imported the drawing into the United States in the 1920s or 1930s.
The Wildenstein Plattner Institute in New York will examine the drawing April 10, Markow said.
The institute is a nonprofit art foundation that publishes digital “catalogue raisonne” projects, a collection of works produced by a particular artist. Inclusion in the catalog is based on art scholars who spend years studying works of art. However, the institute says on its website that inclusion in the catalog isn’t a definitive determination of a work’s authenticity.
Markow said the institute’s inclusion of the drawing in its publications would be better than a standard authentication.
Depending on whether the art is genuine and if it’s never been exhibited before, it could value anywhere from hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions of dollars, she added.
“I spent hundreds of hours … I mean, every single which way you can turn it, and I’m pretty confident that what I have is an authentic, in-his-hand drawing,” Markow said. “It’s a very beautiful, dark, well-kept, framed … in amazing condition. The framing and the paper are period-correct. The style of his drawing is spot on. His signature — I verified each letter — is spot on. For me, I’m excited, but I’m cautiously … being optimistic about this. Because … if they don’t give it the nod, it doesn’t mean that it’s not. It just means that probably more research would need to be done.”
The New York auction house Bonhams would later put up the art for auction May 15.
Another nude art piece by Renoir, the oil painting “The Bather,” sold for $20.9 million in 1997 at a New York auction.
“His works at auction are golden,” Markow said.