<!–
<!–
<!– <!–
<!–
<!–
<!–
An Antiques Roadshow guest disagreed with an expert’s huge five-figure valuation of a 100-year-old item, calling it “priceless”.
By presenting a bust sculpted by her mother, the guest captivated expert evaluator Ronnie Archer-Morgan.
He said: ‘I love this bust portrait. I think it’s amazing and skillful work. I mean, it’s a really beautiful sculpture. You have to tell me everything about this.’
Explaining the story behind the striking work of art, the guest replied: ‘It was carved by my mother in teak (wood) when she was teaching at a school in South Africa around 1925, it was there for quite a few years.
“She was there when she was a young woman of about 23, to found a school of sculpture and modeling at the invitation of the director of the Slade School of Art in London.”
An Antiques Roadshow guest disagreed with an expert’s huge five-figure valuation of a 100-year-old item, calling it “priceless”.
By presenting a bust sculpted by her mother, the guest captivated expert evaluator Ronnie Archer-Morgan.
Evidently impressed, Ronnie replied: ‘Slade was the epicenter of art at the time. He would have studied all the greats to come up with this. She is a really brilliant sculptor.
Antiques Roadshow expert Ronnie praised the guest’s mother, who was called Margaret and known as Peggy.
Predicting that “people would go crazy” for the piece, he said the item could fetch between £5,000 and £10,000 if it came up for sale at auction.
However, the guest immediately suggested that the sculpture was priceless and should be in a museum rather than sold.
She said: “I think in its own way it’s kind of priceless, to be honest,” adding: “I feel like it’s not a household piece, it should be in the public domain.”
Although Ronnie and the guest seemed to disagree about the potential value of the article, the former still praised the way it was expertly crafted, adding, “This is packed with pent-up energy and a power that sounds like an oxymoron.” But she must have sat with the model, just to get to know him and try to understand him, to get inside her head and feel who she was.
‘We have to remember that this was done in South Africa at a time when people who looked like him were living in this world of repression. This is the Phoenix rising from the ashes of those terrible times.’
He continued: ‘We still have your mother’s excellence, here in this sculpture. I love the way she made the tight curls on her head, she left what we call advertising marks like the texture of her hair.
Expressing his opinion on the piece, Ronnie said: “I love this portrait bust. I think it’s amazing and skillful work. I mean, it’s a really beautiful sculpture.
The guest immediately suggested that the sculpture was priceless and should be in a museum rather than sold.