One of the most anticipated moments of the television show “Antiques Roadshow” is when participants come to learn that their dust-covered garage sale find or inherited household item is worth many multiples of what was originally paid for it.

A similar plot unfolded on March 5, when a Cortlandt Manor couple, who asked not to be identified, brought two paintings that they had recently inherited to an “Antiques Appraisal Day” event sponsored by the Larchmont Historical Society (LHS) and Clarke Auction Gallery.

Both paintings appeared to be signed by Jasper F. Cropsey, a 19th Century landscape painter of the Hudson River School. Cropsey's paintings have appeared in major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. 

When David Bahssin, co-owner of Post Road Gallery and one of the expert appraisers at the event, initially saw the couple’s paintings he was dubious, given the fact that the paintings were a pair and appeared to have been completed late in the artist’s career.

“They were painted well after the artist’s prime period,” he said. “That confused me.”

Clarke Auction Gallery Owner Ron Clarke, an eternal optimist, then viewed the paintings himself and, recognizing the quality and potential value, “decided to pursue further.”

The Cropsey paintings had all the dust and dirt of many years on them, having spent several decades hovering over a ping-pong table in the owner’s childhood home in West Hartford, Connecticut.

“It’s a sign that they haven’t been seen in public for 150 years,” said Clarke Appraiser Tom Curran, referring to the original, untouched condition of the works.

Bahssin recommended that the gallery contact the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, a Hastings-on-Hudson-based organization that is the foremost authority on the work of Cropsey to further authenticate the pieces.

It was a bit of a hard sell, confessed Clarke, but eventually the Foundation agreed to look at both paintings in person.