I have to the honor to be on the board of a local historical group, and at a committee meeting over Tanzanian tea the other day we were discussing some portraits that we have on display.
One woman told us that the phrase "that will cost an arm and a leg" was coined because colonial artists used to charge extra for painting hands and feet. As evidence she pointed to a portrait on the wall in which, sure enough, the subject's hand was hidden inside his yellow vest.
When I got home I checked out this great story online -- and alas found it thoroughly debunked on "The Phrase Finder" website:
"The tale that is told is that portrait painters used to charge more for larger paintings and that a head and shoulders painting was the cheapest option, followed in price by one which included arms and finally the top of the range 'legs and all' portrait. As so often with popular etymologies, there's no truth in that story. Painters certainly did charge more for large pictures, but there's no evidence to suggest they did so by limb count. In any case the phrase is much more recent than the painting origin would suggest."
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