The appraised work is a pastel on paper drawing, titled ‘Leadpipe, Portrait of a Desert Man’ executed by American artist Nancy Fontaine. Not much information is known about the artist. She was likely born on the East Coast but eventually migrated out to the Western US, and lived/worked in California and Arizona. She primarily painted portraits, of Native American Indians out in Arizona, but also executed commissioned portraits for celebrity clients, including Barbra Streisand, Marlon Brando, Willie Nelson, and John Wayne. The subject work depicts a bust-length portrait of an aged man with white hair and a full beard. Given the title of the piece, it’s likely this is an image of a Native American from the Desert Southwest.

The estimate provided was extrapolated from comparables offered and sold at auction. Unfortunately, there is very limited auction data is available for the artist. Only three of Fontaine’s artworks have ever come up for sale, all oil portrait paintings of Native Americans on cowhides. These paintings are all substantially larger than the subject work and (obviously) incorporate different materials. Overall, the results from these sales were middling. One failed to sell while the other two achieved prices below their low presale estimates. The subject work’s size, composition, condition (based on photographs provided), as well as Fontaine’s overall auction market were taken into consideration when determining the estimate. In many cases, pricing for similar examples available on the primary (retail) market vary, and are often higher than secondary (auction) market examples.