GUEST: My husband and I love this painting.

We love the artist and we loved everything about the color in it.

APPRAISER: How long ago did you acquire the painting?

GUEST: It would have been about 40 years ago in the '80s from a gallery in Denver.

APPRAISER: What do you know about the artist?

GUEST: Well I just simply know that he was very prolific in Western art, and particularly, in Colorado.

APPRAISER: Well his name is Charles Partridge Adams.

GUEST: Partridge... yes.

APPRAISER: And he was born in 1858 in Massachusetts, and moved to Colorado when he was 18.

His sister, I believe, had tuberculosis, so, you know how you would go to the mountains?

GUEST: Oh yes, oh yes.

APPRAISER: And he started working at a bookstore called Chain and Hardy, and the wife of one of the owners had actually studied with George Inness and when she realized that he had artistic talent she very much encouraged him and supported him in his quest to become an artist.

He had his first exhibition in Denver in 1886 and established his first studio in Denver in 1893.

He also started spending the summers in Estes Park and painting there.

And one thing he figured out when he did establish a studio was that if he painted in watercolor, those paintings tended to sell a little bit faster because they were less expensive.

So he was-- he was very clever.

He moved to Los Angeles around 1920 and basically lived there 'til he died in the '40s.

But he-- again, being clever, he figured out that the Colorado subjects that he liked to paint didn't really sell so well in California, so he started to paint coastal scenes.

But he would still paint Colorado subjects from memory and send them back to Colorado for sale.

So he was quite entrepreneurial.

GUEST: He was very, very prolific and very popular.

APPRAISER: Yes.

Here.

This is a very good example of the artist's work.

A circa date might be 1900 to 1920.

The medium is oil on canvas.

What I particularly love about the painting, like you, is the color, but I also just love looking at the surface, where you can see the texture of the paint...

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: ...and the mark of the brush.

I know we talked about maybe how much you paid for it.

GUEST: I just can't really remember, but I'm guessing $20,000 to $25,000.

APPRAISER: Well that would make sense, because in the late '80s, the Western market was very, very strong...

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: ...and there were very good prices then.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: If we were to offer this in a retail gallery now, the asking price might be around $50,000.

GUEST: Well that's always encouraging and nice to hear, but I love having it in my own house.

I love showing something as beautiful as that, and 'cause I adore Colorado.