GUEST: So, this was given to me by my father, who got it from his father.

So, my grandpa worked at the Mare Island Shipyard during World War II.

He got it from a serviceman returning from the Pacific theater at the end of the war.

Came off the ship, said he was tired of hauling it around, and asked my grandfather if he wanted it, and he said, "Sure."

The serviceman said that he had cut it down from the wall of a Japanese officer's hut.

He had painted this on the canvas side of his tent of the Japanese fleet.

And when they took the island-- I'm not sure which one-- he just cut it down and took it with him for the rest of the, the war.

APPRAISER: What you have here would qualify as spoils of war.

This is an original artwork painted on a piece of military equipment.

So as far as Uncle Sam was concerned, in World War II, this was completely legitimate as something that a serviceman could take and bring home.

GUEST: Hm.

APPRAISER: The dividing line that they made at that point in history was whether or not it is personal property.

You can't kick in the door and go into somebody's house and take their household goods.

But materials on the battle, on the battlefield, uh, are fair game.

Obviously, we know right off the bat that these are Japanese warships.

We've got the Japanese naval ensign, the rising sun ensign, at the stern of the vessel.

But even if you couldn't see that, you would know right away that these are Japanese naval capital ships from World War II by the pagoda masts that we see here.

They're very distinctive elements of Japanese naval architecture.

The entirety of their war strategy with the United States, after they failed to knock the Pacific Fleet out, was to draw the Americans across the Pacific, and then tangle with them in one giant, decisive naval battle.

It never really happened that way for them.

They did sortie at the end.

It played out very poorly for the Japanese fleet.

On the back, there are patches.

On the front, you can s, see where the stitching has come through.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: So, clearly, this was a damaged and repaired piece of canvas before the artist even started painting on it.

GUEST: Mm-hmm.

APPRAISER: But it is a beautiful thing.

It displays well.

I would put a retail price on this in the neighborhood of $2,000 to $2,500.

GUEST: Wow.

Okay.

(chuckles): That's great.