Unfortunately. she has no friends or family who are able or willing to assist. I recently visited the house, and although it’s a nice place and in good order nothing much seems to have changed since the 1950s. The woman in question is a very distant relative, whom we did used to visit occasionally when I was a small child, and the house and its furnishings are essentially identical to how I remember them 60 years ago.
Most of the contents seem to be of no particular interest, but there is a pair of paintings –
(My apologies for the dreadful quality of the photos - they were taken in a hurry).
As can be seen, they are signed “E Masters”, but Googling has found very little information about the artist.
I can't say they're particularly to my taste, but I did notice that another painting by him/her had been sold in 2010 – https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Near- ... 5480972D5F
It’s clearly the same artist, as the style and signature are identical. Unfortunately, in order to obtain any information about the sale via Mutual Art one has to register and pay, which seems a bit pointless as a one off enquiry. However, the fact that I've only been able to trace one other painting indicates they're an extremely minor artist.
I’m not sure what to do. I can’t imagine the paintings are worth very much – maybe a few hundred pounds each – and I would imagine the well known auction houses would either not be interested or would have a minimum commission so large as to make selling through them pointless.
I've considered trying to sell through eBay (hence my interest in the other post) but I can’t realistically see how I could even get started without at least some idea of the value of the paintings.
I have arranged the sale of artworks in the past that were known to be valuable, and it's been quite straightforward (if expensive). However, these paintings seem to be potentially too valuable just to give to the local charity shop but unlikely to be valuable enough to be of any interest to a mainstream auction house.
I therefore wondered whether anybody might be able to offer any useful advice and/or suggest the best way of disposing of them.
TIA for any replies.
