'Antiques Roadshow' guest gets $25,000 appraisal for sculpture that her kids used to play around with
“Antiques Roadshow” guests often turn up with family heirlooms or artifacts that they feel are valuable, but at times, the items that they bring are just lying around the house. Such was the case of a guest, who realized that a sculpture, which her grandmother got for $500 and her kids used to dress up in Christmas cracker hats, was actually worth a whopping five-figure sum.
The sculpture of the Greek mythological figure Pan was made by the eminent African-American sculptor Richmond Barthe. The expert said that in a retail setting, its price would be $15,000 to $25,000. This was a lot higher than what the guest might have expected. “My kids have been putting Christmas cracker hats on his head. I should maybe put him a bit higher so they can’t reach him,” she said. The guest had revealed that her grandmother had chanced upon Barthe’s studio in the ‘60s when she was vacationing and Jamaica, and had seen the sculpture in its nascent state. She put a deposit down and later communicated with the artist via letters for the next couple of years. “When she finally got it, it was her pride and joy. She kept it in a place of honor everywhere she lived,” she said.
The sculpture was beautiful but had a menacing look about it, so a lot of her family members weren’t too keen on keeping it around. The guest, however, always adored it. “The joke was when Nana passed away, it wasn’t who gets Pan, it was who’s going to have to take care of him. And I volunteered because I think he’s beautiful,” she added. Well, Pan wasn’t just beautiful, he was also worth a lot of money.
Sculptures are common to see on “Antiques Roadshow,” and while some might have been bought thanks to a chance meeting with the artist, some hold immense historical significance. On a different episode of the show, one guest had brought a tortoise sculpture that was made of solid silver. The silver alone would have been worth a ton of money, but the historical significance of the item shot its value sky high.
It was made by Unno Shomin, a highly regarded Japanese court artist of the time. Not only was the tortoise solid silver, but it also had a few barnacles attached to its shells that were made of pure gold. “In addition to the material, there’s the workmanship. Not only the details of things like the barnacles, but the details of the scales, the face, the seaweed, all this is chased and done by hand,” the expert said.
It was assumed that the sculpture was made during the late 19th and early 20th century in Japan, and the guest’s father had brought it back from World War II. The guest believed its value to be around $3,000 to $4,000. “I think it’s more like $20,000 to $30,000 at auction,” the expert revealed, much to the guest’s surprise.
