'Antiques Roadshow' guest used a $15 sculpture as doorstop, then she found out its real value
Trash has often turned out to be treasure on "Antiques Roadshow," once garage sale finds or absolute junk caught an expert's eye. On one such occasion, a young guest lugged in a bronze statue that had been used as a doorstop in her family for years. While the $15 garage sale find wasn't appreciated a lot by the guest, the show's expert, Ernest DuMouchelle, told her that it was a rather rare Pierre-Eugène-Emile Hébert Bronze sculpture. He revealed that it was worth about $8,000, which is why she should keep it on a pedestal in the future.
In the episode, the young guest told the expert that the item was originally picked up by her grandmother, who happened to like its aesthetics. "She got it either at a flea market or at a garage sale. That's where she gets almost everything. She got it for $15-$20 probably, and she got it because my sister, Porsche, my dad, and I all like Greek and Roman mythology, and she just saw it, and that's pretty much the only reason she got it," she shared.
DuMouchelle then asked her if she knew anything about the maker of the piece, and the guest added that they looked up Emile Hébert after looking at the signature on the item, but they couldn't find much. "Well, one of the problems that you had when you were looking him up was that his first name is Pierre. So you had to know that this signature, which is here, Emile Hébert, is actually Pierre Emile," the expert said, taking over. He added that the maker is a well-listed artist, known for his Neoclassical art.
Coming to the item, DuMouchelle noted that the construction of the statue was unique as well. "What I like about the piece is that first of all it's bronze, and it has the gold doré inlays on it, which are very, very nice," he said. He further added that it was dated 1867, and the foundry mark for the company that cast the statue for the artist said, "GS," and it was a gold medal winner. "So this actually won a prize at the Salon in Paris in 1867," DuMouchelle shared.
"You should take it to a professional and have him try to clean it for you," the expert said before coming to the appraisal. Noting the provenance of the item and the popularity of the artist, DuMouchelle estimated that the item could easily bring $4,000 to $6,000 at auction. The number took the guest's breath away as she made a shocking revelation. "Oh, my gosh! That's a doorstop!" she said, leaving the expert astonished.
After DuMouchelle confirmed that the guest said, "Doorstop," he pleaded with the guest to be more careful in the future. "Well, you'd better put it up on a pedestal now," he said in the end.
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