'Antiques Roadshow' guest who didn't like her husband's cat painting is stunned to hear its value
The woman who gifted the painting to the owners had earlier sold it to another dealer as she couldnt sleep at night.
Oct. 6 2025, Published 1:00 p.m. ET
Even when "Antiques Roadshow" guests come to the show after conducting their own research about the value of items that they possess, most of them are shocked after the expert's appraisal. But when a painting that they couldn't even stand the sight of turns out to be worth a fortune, they are even more elated. Such was the case of a guest who came to the show with a painting by James Bateman called 'Lobster Sauce.' The artwork came from Germany and featured a fish, a lobster and a cat that looked hideous.
In fact, the painting was given to the guest and her husband by the wife of a former employee of theirs, after she repurchased it from an antiques dealer. She had sold it in the first place because she couldn't sleep at night while looking at it. But once her husband passed away, she felt he would've wanted his former employers to have the painting.
Explaining the origins of the painting in the German trend of drawing cruel and shocking images of animals. When he asked the woman what she felt about the painting, she was quick to point out that she didn't like anything about it, including the cat with its eyes popping out and its mouth. Her husband, however, loved the painting, and that is why she wanted to let him know that the expert appraised the artwork at $6,700.
Another such guest on the show was caught by surprise when her old cat painting was appraised at a whopping $12,000. While the guest only knew how much the item initially cost, the show's expert, Todd Weyman, revealed that it came from a renowned artist named Theophile Steinlen, and it was, in fact, a lithograph. But in her case, she didn't like cats to begin with, and only changed her mind about the pets after the massive valuation.
She had simply inherited the item from her cousin, who was in the Women's Army Corps during World War II. "She went to Paris and she bought this painting. She is a cat lover, and she paid a few hundred dollars for it, and she was told that it was extremely valuable," she told Weman. Since she wasn't a cat lover, so the painting had been on her porch for nearly 15 years.
The expert pointed out the signature of the artist and the stamp of the publisher, which showed the item was authentic. "Framewise, it's not good to have a print pushed up to a piece of glass like this. It would be much better off to have it taken out of this frame and put in a mat so the print itself isn't directly touching the glass," Weyman advised.
He further noted that the print was in excellent condition apart from a few humidification marks that were caused by the glass pressing on it. In this condition, if I had to put a replacement value or a retail value on this, I would say it's around $10,000. To $12,000," the expert went on to say, leaving the guest in shock. "I'm stunned!" she exclaimed as she took a deep sigh.
In the end, Weyman jokingly asked the guest if she had now started to love cats, to which the guest responded saying, "I'm beginning to love it. I just can't believe it!"
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