'Antiques Roadshow' guest stunned after hearing the value of Japanese book that she bought for $3
"Antiques Roadshow" often features artifacts or collectibles that cost the owner little but turned out to be worth a fortune after an appraisal. While there are everyday items that are brought by guests, few have been as unique as a book filled with Japanese illustrations. That’s what one guest brought to an earlier episode of the BBC edition of the show. These illustrations were made in the 17th century by an artist called Toyokuni, who was one of the top artists at the time in the country.
The guest said that her husband had purchased it in a junk shop in the late 1940s for just 25 shillings, which is around $3. There were a total of 80 pages worth of illustrations in the book. On the cover of the book was a Japanese expression that meant long life, according to the expert. These illustrations were printed onto the pages using a technique that was unknown to the Western world at the time.
The expert said that the illustrations were all printed using wood blocks. The good thing was that the guest also knew what the process was. Each color was put on separately, and then the whole thing was printed in one go. “They place the paper on the carved wooden block and then rubbed it,” the expert said. He also pointed out some of the places where the lines from the wood left an impression on the paper.
It’s not just the technique of printing that was unique; the type of art was as well. Japanese art was very different from Western art at the time, and it also inspired an important style of painting after being discovered by the Europeans. The Japanese illustrations did not have any perspective or depth. These were all two-dimensional, and the way they were discovered in the West is quite interesting.
“Once they were sort of run off, they became scrap paper, just like yesterday’s newspaper, and a lot of the ceramics that came out of Japan in the second half of the 19th century arrived in Europe wrapped up in screwed up prints,” the expert said. “When these arrived in France, they were passed around the impressionist painters, and their minds were blown by these extraordinary designs, and this led on to impressionism.”
Basically, what the guest had brought to the show was a book full of artwork that had given birth to an entire style of painting in the West, which was previously unknown. That means that the book was worth a lot of money. The expert said that it was £20 ($26) to £30 ($40) per page. The total value of the book was ascertained at somewhere between £2,500 ($3,311) to £3,500 ($4,646). The guest wasn’t expecting this kind of appraisal and was speechless for a few moments. “25 shillings has worked into £2,500. Not a bad buy,” the expert added.
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