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00:00every year we travel the country giving you the chance to show our experts your cherished items
00:10but our summer roadshows have proved so popular we haven't been able to pack in all the pieces
00:16you brought along so tonight we'll be showing some unseen moments from some of our most memorable
00:21venues coming up when i opened that i thought wow this is something i have never seen before
00:30well do you know what i wish i did know ada because i bet ada had a really cracking sense of humor
00:36it's not a bad birthday present not a bad birthday present so do you think your husband might like
00:42them more if i put a more punchy value no he's taught me not to bring them back go
00:47i'll also be paying a visit to trentum gardens on the outskirts of stoke-on-trent a city that's
00:55celebrating its centenary in 2025 and as i'll be finding out the history of the potteries is closely
01:02entwined with the story of these splendid gardens they were designed in the 18th century by capability
01:08brown no less for the duke of sutherland and at the time they were considered the most impressive in the
01:14land we love a good garden on the antics roger and we've seen some very memorable ones this year
01:21welcome to the antics road show
01:27we visited some stunning historical buildings in 2025 and back on a sunny day in may we set up at
01:49shuttleworth house in bedfordshire where ceramics expert catherine wright found a piece that recalled
01:55the glory days of one of stoke's finest potters well my spirits really lifted today when i saw you
02:02produce this beautiful pair of vases from your bag what can you tell me about them i've had them seven
02:08years since my mother passed i really don't know an awful lot about them all i know is that they're
02:13moorcroft mum had had them for many many years i don't even know what style pattern they are so yeah
02:19and was your mom a keen murcroft collector no no she was an antique collector so she collected
02:25everything everything yes yes lots and lots of things so these are vases in the hazel dean pattern
02:30designed by william murcroft and what's particularly nice about these vases is that if we have a look
02:36underneath we see william murcroft's signature painted in green w murcroft design so the hazel dean
02:45pattern it was a pattern that was specifically designed for the luxury retail shop liberty and co
02:50what age are they they're dated 1913 and that is when murcroft founded his own pottery so these are
02:57lovely early examples of his work this pattern you can see it's very much influenced by the art nouveau
03:03what we have is this lovely pattern of elongated trees in a landscape setting and this was a time in
03:11which murcroft was sort of expanding beyond floral designs and going into landscape designs in his
03:17pottery the technique here that he uses is the signature of murcroft and it's this tube lining
03:23technique where he's picked out all of the organic details of the branches and the trunks
03:29in liquefied slip lovely colors this bluish green glaze with celadon tones in the landscape here
03:37and yellows coming through do you live with them now and do you have them displayed in your own home
03:44they are on a shelf um and i don't really particularly like them oh my goodness so yeah sorry mum
03:51well i absolutely love these vases and because they're large yep you've got a pair and the pattern
03:58is desirable yes i think these would comfortably be worth in the region of four to six thousand pounds at
04:04auction what yeah really oh well i'm glad that's such good news for you
04:18when i found out that the actual pattern is hazel dean it was quite nice because my mum's name
04:24is hazel so i can imagine that's the reason why she got them in the first place so yeah it was lovely
04:31really nice this is a wonderfully imposing image of a gentleman isn't it and i know this gentleman as
04:45william frederick cody but known to most people of course by the legendary title of buffalo bill i'm
04:53very interested in the history of buffalo bill's wild west show he was born in 1846 and he had a
05:00tough upbringing by the age of 11 he was working at 14 he was a pony express rider wow so i know there's
05:08a family story going on here to do with buffalo bill and we have this photograph can you tell me
05:13about this gentleman in the photograph yes it's a great uncle and he was my great grandmother's brother
05:21i can see he's in military uniform here can you tell me something about that yes he was in the
05:25first lifeguards what was his association with buffalo bill from what i was told buffalo bill
05:31came over to recruit horse riders and i suppose because he was in the horse guards and a good
05:37horseman that's a pretty incredible story in fact it's not a story that i've heard before
05:41the wild west show was a kind of fairy tale image really or a fairy tale representation of what
05:47the wild west was like but of course we know that to be a very very different scenario so the period
05:54we're talking about basically is the kind of 1880s and cody toured the britain and europe on several
06:01occasions even queen victoria came to see the wild west show one thing that kind of ties him in as well
06:07are things like this so this is an official route buffalo bills wild west and it's an official date route
06:14of all the places that they were visiting it's an incredible itinerary i cannot tell you how many
06:21shows they were enacting and in fact i do believe that on some of these uh your relative's name is
06:27actually written on the back uh on one of them so that ties him in absolutely perfectly he was there
06:33he was doing this this in itself is a lithographed advertising sign oh so in fact this is actually
06:43on tin so if i tap it you can hear that this signature in the bottom says sincerely yours buffalo bill
06:51it's not a real signature oh value it would be worth a lot more if this was a real signature but i think
07:00as it stands at auction this would currently be worth around about four to six hundred pounds
07:04yeah but delightful thank you it's a lovely story isn't it it is yes thank you
07:15i'm kind of speechless because i have never seen such a bizarre collection of christmas cards where's the
07:23joviality the jolliness of christmas none there no it's all kind of bizarre from devils and sort of
07:30a man drunk in the street yes yes if you didn't mention christmas wouldn't know no christmas cards
07:34no how and why are you a collector of christmas cards no no i just came across the collection
07:40in my elderly cousin's house when after she died i mean they're signed from most of them by somebody
07:45called ada and i don't really know an ada in the family but well do you know what i wish i did know
07:50ada because i bet ada had a really cracking sense of humor you've got sort of slightly naughty they're
07:56almost like the sort of saucy seaside postcards aren't they there's this man about town there
08:01with his cane a true boulevardier and you open it up and like a true boulevardier he's having a load
08:08of fun and then here you've got this ta-da hee-haw of a donkey in a barn a lot of these are printed
08:16really really well and i think best wishes for the new century is obviously a pun on century century
08:21so i'm guessing that's what 1899 yeah so we're looking at sort of late victorian turn of the 20th
08:27century cards people do collect christmas cards valentine's is the big one but christmas card
08:32collectors are out there and they're very ardent and average let's just say we've got 20 pounds
08:37on average 20 40 60 80 100 and 20 40 you've probably got over 200 pounds worth and maybe
08:43considerably more yes i really didn't think there was any value to them just curiosity and amazement
08:49good old ada right yes
09:06well the style and the design of this gorgeous polar bear just scream art deco but before we reveal a
09:13little bit of his story tell me how do you come to own him he was a wedding present to my parents
09:19they were married in 1944 i've done it all my life obviously and they gave it to me when i got
09:26married and you always remember it in their home oh always absolutely in fact i used to play with it
09:32you used to play with it wow so he's he survived he did i had my children played with it actually
09:39well he's just the most gorgeous thing he's the most beautifully designed item and when we look at
09:45it you know it's all about this economy of line this simplicity that just pairs this wonderful polar
09:50bear down to you know the absolute bare minimum here he is sat on this sort of stepped ice block
09:56looking down into this wonderful three ripple pool and actually if we turn him over there's a lot of
10:03little gifts there for us because underneath we have the words polar bear modeled by doris linda and
10:11then next to it the royal worcester marks dated 1937 well doris linda was actually a very talented artist
10:21she was born at the end of 19th century 1896 in south wales but went on to study art first training
10:27at saint martin's school looking at sculpture she then went on to the british academy in rome and
10:33then came back to london to the calderon's animal school where she learned to observe animals and
10:38just pair them down in that beautiful stylistic form in 1920 she actually exhibited a number of her
10:46works at heels of london and of course it was there that she was picked up and spotted by the management
10:53of royal worcester and in 1931 they launched a range which included works by her and of course
10:59over the period she created all kinds of studies of dogs horses but also she did her zoo babies and
11:06i think this is probably where he came from i've never had the pleasure of handling this model and i
11:13love him and i think if he were to come up for sale at auction today i think you'd comfortably be
11:20looking at somewhere in the region of five to eight hundred pounds for him i won't tell the kids
11:32this is by one of my favorite artists he became president of the royal academy we are not worthy
11:37sir frank dixie by the time he died in 1928 he was essentially in the modern world but he's a victorian
11:44painter and this is the sort of picture that he made his name with mythological grande mise-en-scene
11:50what an amazing burst of color that is i think it's a study for a much larger picture yeah i'm
11:54pretty sure so frank dixie what is he to you he's my great great uncle on my mother's side of the family
12:02so these are direct from his studio effectively or his house pretty much yeah these would all have been
12:07in the in the family in one person's hand they've come down to me now uh it's oil on card and it's just
12:15beautifully and freely done he's just done it as a color sketch he hasn't bothered with the details
12:21of the faces because it's not about drawing it's about tying in all the shapes and the composition
12:27getting the colors in order this is the kind of picture that he made his name with imagine this
12:31really huge on the wall of the royal academy with a frame perhaps even larger than the picture itself
12:37what he also did was this kind of domestic scene underneath it i mean that's very victorian isn't
12:44it well it's very romantic isn't it this wonderful little oil painting of a girl reading a love letter
12:50by candlelight it is one of my favorites it's very intimate isn't it and the glow of light in a halo
12:56casting a shadow across her brown ringlets on the back of the chair so i suppose that's a bit earlier
13:02than this mythological scene of maybe about 1870 the clothes make me think so but frank dixie was of
13:09a large family of very good painters and none of these pictures are signed thinking about it this
13:16could well be by frank's father thomas francis dixie yes and then this delightful little sketch which
13:23shows how free he could be when he wasn't trying too hard for the royal academy who's that little girl
13:28well you know the family story is that it is based on my grandmother she's so alert and the
13:34light on her face is so delightful and the hair completely uncoiffed and natural totally innocent
13:39with this lovely white light behind her i mean he's really caught her inquiring inquisitive
13:44inspiration hasn't he you know i love the speed at which it's done just a few strokes i can imagine
13:50he's good enough to do that in like 20 minutes i just wish yeah if only we could all do that yeah again
13:57it's possible that this is actually by another member of the dixie family perhaps frank's sister
14:02margaret who was also really good okay what are they all worth put them back looking at that
14:08i'd say four to six thousand pounds wow it's wonderful what about that i mean it's delightful i think
14:17that's six to eight thousand pounds of anyone's money and then lastly this delightful thing not so
14:23valuable and yet i'm going to put two to three thousand pounds on that that will add up to
14:28something like over 15 000 pounds um it's quite a lot uh when you finish up yeah surprising well
14:36well they're brilliant things really lovely things thank you
14:54stoke-on-trent is celebrating a hundred years as a city and at nearby trentham gardens we're making a
15:00welcome return visit a decade since the roadshow was here in 2015. back then it was being restored
15:08to its former glory having lain neglected for years and now look we've got the blossoms you can smell
15:15the perfume but i tell you back in the day you would not have wanted to take any deep breaths around here
15:21when capability brown designed the garden in the 18th century with the lake as its ornamental showpiece
15:30part of the river trent was damned to allow it to supply the water big mistake as the potteries grew
15:37and became more industrialized the towns expanded and the trent just by trentum became more and more
15:44polluted the river was described at the time as a foul slimy sewer brim full of the impurities
15:51of every dirty crowded town that hugs its banks for the duke and duchess of sutherland the owners of
15:58trentum hall well the place just stank so they decided to put the place up for sale but the stench
16:05was so bad they couldn't get a sniff from a buyer six years later abandoned and unloved the hall was
16:13pulled down and its sculptures windows and doors were sold off to raise funds there was no longer a grand
16:21house so it was the gardens that had further incarnations in the 30s and 40s they became the
16:27playground of the potteries with an outdoor swimming pool a bandstand miniature railway and then in the
16:3460s a ballroom was built which hosted the big bands of the day the beatles led zeppelin but from the
16:411970s to the early 2000s the gardens were forgotten once more before a restoration project in 2004 brought
16:48them back to life look at it today visitors can come here and enjoy the gardens restored to their
16:54former glory and the lake looking just beautiful onto the islands beavers have been reintroduced and then
17:04when i sniff the air clean and fresh the transformation is complete
17:18back on a baking hot day in june the roadshow visited lister park in bradford
17:28then celebrating its status as 2025 city of culture
17:33and among the crowds eagle-eyed miscellaneous expert ronnie archer morgan spied a miniature treasure
17:39i know it's tiny but it's perfectly formed and perfectly charming this little celluloid tape
17:49measure where did you get it um well i bought it in jumble sale when i was very young about six seven i
17:56loved it and i used to always go buying little things in jumble sales went to a lot of them when
18:00i was a child can you remember what you paid it would have been a penny or something so i only ever had a
18:04few pennies with me i used to get loads in jumble sales at that time when i first started collecting
18:09i collected piero's oh so that drew me to it right but i love the dog singing to his music yes the dog's
18:19there all molded into the celluloid and singing to his tune and piero's are very romantic and it's
18:27probably french oh great i would say this is early 1920s i would think it still functions yes it still
18:37pulls out it still pulls out i don't like it yeah i don't want to pull it all the way out because you
18:41know something like you have to ease it these them back in when i first saw i you know i said to you
18:46that it's made of celluloid and celluloid's an early plastic yeah and people collect things made of
18:51early plastics you know a collector would pay i think i'm gonna stick my neck out certainly a hundred
18:57pounds possibly up to 150 pounds for that and the fact you bought it when you were six or seven
19:04yeah is heaven that's lovely thank you so much
19:11i was surprised i didn't realize it would be worth anything to be really fair but isn't about the money
19:17anyway i was more curious about what it what it was made from and you know where it might have come from
19:22really we get loads of bibles on the antiques roadshow as you can imagine and many of them don't
19:37have a date on them so you find yourself looking for clues there's a bit of a clue on the spine here
19:43uh 1561 there's a bit of a clue on the title page here in roman numerals 1560.
19:49what do you know about the date of this bible we purely just assumed it was 1561 because that was
19:55what was on the spine of the book well don't always judge a book by its cover because i've had to go
20:00away and do a little bit of research because i couldn't quite join up the dots i think it's
20:05actually published by this john k wood in 1569. right um and it's really quite rare oh the first english
20:13bible complete was published by miles coverdale in uh 1535 so this is within about 30 years of the
20:21first complete english bible it's not in the best condition but it is really really quite rare and at
20:28auction i could see it making somewhere north of three thousand pounds that's excellent fantastic thank
20:34you so much for bringing it thank you pleasure where do you hang these horns at home well they don't
20:43hang on the wall they sit on top of the wardrobe um they've sat on the wardrobe three different
20:48wardrobes for about 49 years is that because you don't like them no that's because my husband
20:54will probably divorce me if i attempted to put them on the wall he's not a fan let's put it that way
21:00where are they from give us some history well i inherited these um from my great grandmother
21:06her father my great great great grandfather uh had these hanging on the pub uh which he ran
21:13now they wouldn't just be by any chance this gentleman here it is indeed yeah that's morton handley
21:19and uh he was a publican he owns two or three different pubs well believe it or not i would have
21:25thought these probably are 1860s wow they look like the work of a very famous scrimshaw engraver
21:35called gustav fontemsky he was a prussian yes and he was an adventurer artist ended up in new zealand
21:44as a soldier wow these are very similar to the sort of things he engraved the decoration was literally
21:53scratched out and you then once you'd scratched your design you would rub a soot based pigment
22:01into those lines that you'd engraved into a you know the soft cow horn and hey polish it up and look
22:10what you've got now what are they worth so do you think your husband might like them more if i put a
22:16more punchy value absolutely not he's taught me not to bring them back go well they're in very
22:22beautiful condition um i haven't ever seen better at auction probably around a thousand pounds
22:30possibly a little more possibly a little less they're not everybody's thing but very unusual
22:36a fabulous signed souvenir program the rolling stones in the queen's hall in leeds from july 1964
22:50obviously not yours no far too young i'd like to know where they came from it was a birthday present
22:56for my 15th birthday from one of our neighbors who knew that i was in a band and liked my music how
23:02fantastic and did she get them signed herself she did yeah her husband i believe went to the gig either
23:07to review it for a local newspaper or a local magazine all right well here we go it's the 12th of july
23:141964 well it's all over now was number one and the stones had just come back from their first north
23:21american tour so they were cresting a wave i mean they were really at the start of their major career
23:26you just wonder what the atmosphere was like in the queen's hall it must have been unbelievable and
23:32then we've got another stones concert here it looks as if it's from their 1965 tour but it doesn't
23:37actually give the venue on it and then we have the four aces uh program from the beatles again it doesn't
23:43say where it is i believe they're both from the bradford gig okay yeah because we've got tickets for them
23:49oh yeah okay so oh heavens look at this so this is the beatles in 1964 october the 9th the beatles
24:00had just come back from their second north american it was all kicking off then i think it was really
24:04kicking off um hard days night the album was number one and look at this this is a3 in the
24:10stalls she must have been right exactly do you think she heard anything of the screaming probably not
24:16so let's talk about the unsigned pieces first so the beatles four aces with the two tickets here for
24:26the performance we're probably talking about 300 pounds ish maybe 400 pounds so that's very nice
24:34the 1965 rolling stones again with its tickets an unsigned piece doesn't have a the same sort of
24:43cachet so we're talking about 80 to 100 pounds yes very good yeah but of course this is the prize this
24:49is the treasure from such an important part at the start of their career i would see this fetching
24:57between 1500 and 1800 pounds at auction really it's not a bad birthday present not a bad birthday no
25:13we've traveled far and wide this year and when we visited the hill of tarvit in fife on scotland's east
25:27coast i couldn't resist a quick round of golf on the estates course the only one in the uk to still use
25:34hickory clubs nice swing with the from the shoulders keep your head still rude not to really in the home
25:41of golf that is not too bad it's not bad at all actually back at the mansion pictures specialist
25:50charlotte riordan came across an intriguing pair of portraits so we're standing here next to a beautiful
25:57young couple painted in the edwardian period can you tell me a little bit about the romantic back
26:02story here yes well this is norman 17 year old this was commissioned by his mother and father before
26:08he actually went to war and this is jeanette she was walking down the high street in perth and the
26:14artist seen her and said i'd like to paint you but she actually said hmm that can't happen i'll have to
26:21ask my mother and the mother said yes okay i can paint you but these are actually by the same artist
26:26charles seller and actually these were painted we've actually before they met each other so they
26:31married later on in life and the daughter actually of these couple left them to me when she passed away
26:37so lovely as you say they're both painted by the same artist this is charles seller now portraiture
26:43in the edwardian period which is where these works pale from was a lucrative way for an artist to make
26:48a living he's a sort of sensitive study of character i think you know this is really
26:53beautifully observed and in watercolor with sort of chalk elements she's obviously an extreme beauty
26:58um beautiful elegant neck and and just a lovely sort of distant look in her eyes there and this
27:04i think is especially poignant he was just about to go off to war this might have been something his
27:08parents made to remember him by the worst were to happen as it did to so many young men it just
27:13captures that sort of on the cusp of manhood i think got the the little sort of shadow of him
27:18moustache his hat looks a wee bit big on his head really lovely little snapshot in time it's a piece
27:22of social history as well in that sense and luckily norman actually got through the war and he came
27:28back yeah and they got together but it's just unusual that two paintings by the same artist end up
27:33together before they even met so they've obviously had a bit of tlc some lovely new frames here keeping
27:39them in good condition do you have them hanging at home yes they're hanging in the hall so every time
27:43we come downstairs and i want to say good morning norman good morning jeanette there's just nice
27:47pictures to look at value wise i think at auction and you know sold individually although obviously
27:54you never want to separate them but sold individually you'd probably be looking at around sort of three
27:59to five hundred each at auction they belong together yeah they do yeah they go together thank you
28:05beautiful heart pendant which is the epitome of love and sentiment it's got an inscription around the
28:18edge what does that say it says henry barnard de la poor beresford pierce he was my adopted grandfather
28:26and how do you think he got hold of the pendant i think it was probably given to him on his christening
28:33because it was the year he was born in 1875 and i see that somebody is wearing the pendant in this
28:40rather special photograph here that is me on my wedding day in 1971. well it is absolutely stunning
28:49the heart is cabochon rock crystal which of course is just the epitome of love and sentiment and then of
28:55course we have the diamond set bow on the top and when you fall in love and the relationship is wonderful
29:01you can tie the bow and then of course sometimes relationships go wrong and it's recognized by
29:07you pull the ribbon and the bow comes undone but then you find true love again and you tie it again
29:13so it's all all will be fine at the end of the day date wise it's probably just a little bit earlier than
29:19when your grandfather was born and this style of jewelry was very popular for a very long time through
29:27that victorian time which was all about love and sentiment there aren't any hallmarks on it there
29:33aren't any makers marks on it either which is typical of the period but it's quite clear that
29:38it's of a good hand and is more than likely british made possibly by a good top london jeweler i'm sure
29:46you're intrigued to know about value i would like to know yes yeah well we are looking at a piece of
29:53jewelry that at auction would fetch somewhere between two and three thousand pounds it's
30:01absolutely lovely thank you very much for bringing it not at all thank you very much
30:14so this is a very striking vase that you've brought along what can you tell me about this piece only
30:19unfortunately that it belonged to my grandparents my grandmother did a short spell of service down in
30:25london we don't know whether it was a wedding gift or whether when she was down in service it was gifted
30:32to her down there but it's been in my house i'm the third generation in the house um and it's been in
30:37in my house um all these years it's a vase designed by a lady called charlotte reed yep and she was working
30:44in the potteries in the 1930s the vases of this ovoid ribbed form with a sort of speckled mottled glaze
30:52and then this band of bold aztec pattern decoration at the top and you can see here that it's clearly
30:59marked c reed with her signature on the base charlotte reed's work is probably the least celebrated
31:06of some of the very iconic female designers who were working in the potteries in the 1930s
31:12so the value at auction would be much more modest okay and it's probably in the region of 80 to 120
31:18pounds lovely thank you
31:32i've got to say look these really come to life and glisten in this like late afternoon sunshine that
31:36we're basking in today um they're almost sort of jewel-like aren't they what do you know about them
31:41they came from my mother's family her great grandfather was involved with a china trade
31:47based in boston in the united states and i believe they went into japan in the early days when the
31:54westerners were first being allowed in because there are lovely japanese things like this scattered
32:00around the family so what they are well they're japanese and they are sort of knife hilts or kazuka
32:09as they're called in japan and the material that they're made from it's a mix of metals uh-huh and
32:16they date from the 19th century well the first one we've got here is we've got this little priest's
32:23attendant i suppose and he looks like he's having a really fun time at a festival or something like
32:29that and if i turn that back that's signed by an artist here called kiyosugu who was producing
32:37incredible fine work and i mean that's you know you can't argue with that so this one on the front
32:41shiroboshi so this is a type of japanese dancer or entertainer and that's the figure that is depicted
32:49there and again exceptional quality now this one is a little torn but it does say kozai so that is
32:55pronounced kozai on the back so that little bit of paper that somebody translated absolutely right
33:01and then this fellow on the front here is jorajin so he's a god and again look signed on the back here
33:09and they were absolutely right tomoyoshi and that is the signature on that one and does the turtle mean
33:16anything it's a minigami so yes so this minigami is a sort of a mythical figure uh in japan and it has a
33:23long tail which is in fact sort of seaweed so it's often sort of depicted so it's seaweed on the
33:27minigami so yeah you like them i do what do you like about them the skill the craft that went into
33:34making them and they tell you something about japan at that time which is fascinating and presumably
33:41they were prestigious items i mean clearly because so much effort was put into them they are a really
33:47nice group they're a really nice set and i think if they came up at auction they'd probably make
33:51somewhere between eight to twelve hundred pounds something like that yeah the detail is quite amazing
34:00we have learned about them and the fact that they were individual artists doing them is fascinating
34:06and they are really special and i love the story about the turtle on the back as well
34:21well i've seen many snuff boxes on the antiques roadshow over the years but i have to say the
34:26snuff box that you've brought in is one of the best i have ever seen it's 18 karat gold it's scottish
34:33and it has got this fabulous faceted citrine on top tell us how it's coming to your family well it
34:40was passed down through the family on my husband's side and he inherited it from his grandmother okay
34:48so we'll just have a look at the base because that's got all the information i think that we need
34:53it says nicely engraved from andrew tennant to his friend alexander blackie and his heirs forever
35:03yeah 1815 it's a splendid inscription isn't it um that's a specialist engraver who's done that part
35:10of the box but there's many other specialists who've been involved in the making of it the border is cast
35:15in 18 karat gold the sides are incurved and we have a special flush hinge on the back so it's a specialist
35:23hinge maker who has done that the stone itself will have been done by an edinburgh lapidary specialist
35:29we've cut the stones the color of that stone sometimes you'll see that catalogued as smoky
35:34quartz it's got that golden almost honey whiskey color to a deep deep color it's a fantastic stone
35:42in its own right i would need to do a bit more research to find out the exact maker yeah the
35:47makers mark is clearly here ig edinburgh 1815. the nice thing though i don't know if you've noticed between
35:54the date and the hallmark it has the actual maker of the box deary d-e-a-r-i-e didn't know that no it's
36:02quite faint but it's there so again we would need to do a bit further research just to find out
36:08what he fits in but that must have been one real special friend to have given
36:12a box like that yes we don't know why or or what the relationship was between uh his friend and
36:21alexander blackie who was the ancestor yeah but it would be very interesting to find out if that
36:26turned up on the market you would be looking at an estimate of 10 to 15 000 pounds oh wow
36:33that's very nice to hear gosh thanks so much for bringing it today it's made my day well it's made
36:42my day unexpectedly yes wonderful thank you thank you
36:50from high summer in fife we return to early autumn sunshine in trentham gardens near stoke-on-trent
36:57where expert will farmer is challenging me to an appropriately
37:00pottery based game we're in the land of the potteries we're going to be talking about
37:05ceramics who better than will and we have to rank these in order of value with basic better best
37:10correct and they all look absolutely stunning this is really about luxurious lustres what i wanted to
37:17do is bring along three pieces that really epitomize that late 19th early 20th century surge and
37:25renaissance in the work of lustreware because lustreware is just this incredible medium
37:30in the world of ceramics you're looking at wares here that all use silver gold platinum reduction
37:36firings to remove oxygen to create these beautiful finishes so let's start nearest you this is a piece
37:43by the great william d morgan a beautiful double ruby lustre circle late 1880s pulling in all those
37:51hispanomoresque sort of ideas the florid motifs the dragons everything you'd want to see move on nearest
37:58me we've got a piece it's a little bit later 1912 1915 this is richard joyce for pilkington's
38:05lancastrian who were really the masters i mean and this is incredible it's got the goddess of the sea
38:11being pulled by hippocampia i mean this is a show-stopping piece and then in the middle the latest of all
38:18three this is circa 1920 25 and this is daisy mckay jones at wedgwood with her fairyland lustre a large
38:27malfrey pot in a pattern called candle mass now the game is which and i hate to say it myself because
38:34they're all incredible yes which one is a basic let's let that feels a bit harsh which one is better
38:41and which one is best what are the values we're talking about so in terms of the values we're
38:46looking at one of these pieces is worth between four and six thousand one of these pieces is worth
38:53eight to nine thousand and one of these pieces is worth twelve to fifteen thousand pounds
39:03right oh my goodness i'm hoping you've all got some ideas
39:07which do you think is the best the one in the middle of the red one yes and why do you choose
39:14that one i just like the color and the shape of the the angles on the pot and also it's older than
39:22the others isn't it yes yeah okay so you're going for that one i'm going for that one all right what
39:28about you i'm a particular fan of the one in the middle it's the most extraordinarily ornate one
39:34especially with the sun out and the colors that are reflecting off it whether that adds any value
39:37to it i don't know but it's definitely pleasing to the eye i don't know i'm erring towards the red one
39:45i just i like it more i mean i love the red one the best i have to anyone going for the blue one
39:51i'd go with the daisy the wedgewood you give the one in the middle as well yes
39:55so would you like some little clues of course in terms of de morgan double ruby lustre this is a
40:03thing he perfected he set the benchmark pilkington's quite a high volume turnout their productions are
40:11out there also when we look at something like fairyland lustre you've got to think about scale
40:17size and complexity and the amount of hours and work that have gone in to create something
40:22so these three show the story of how the industry has perfected the techniques and processes
40:29of lustre wear right now what we have to bear in mind ladies and gents is that will is also
40:34probably trying to throw us off a bit with that oh as i've learned with you i'm actually trying to
40:40help you here yeah i am i promise you i promise you he says that as well well the thing is look this
40:45is the obvious sock you in the chops showstopper rockstar pot so you're locking that in no because
40:56because you always tell me go with what you like yeah and i would have thought this would be more to
41:02today's taste either this one or that one there's two out of three went for this yeah and that's good
41:09enough for me because it's my favorite okay if you turn around tell me i'm going to be very cross
41:13but i'm going to say basic they're obviously not very basic at all which is the pilkington yeah
41:20better yeah best locked in oh boy you're going to be cross oh oh you should have gone with the
41:29hit you around the chop showstopper oh no this is our basic although i hate to use that word because
41:36it is so beautiful but is the pilkington's lancastrian by richard joyce at four to six thousand
41:43the ruby lustre the double ruby lustre by de morgan at sort of eight to nine thousand pounds is our better
41:49that that is the absolute glory piece of daisy mckay jones for wedgwood fairyland lustre
41:5712 to 15 000 pounds oh gosh well done you thanks very much you're welcome
42:19one of our busiest locations this year was stevens house in north london
42:24it was once home to henry stevens who made his fortune from indelible ink he then spent it
42:30creating a beautiful self-sufficient garden and in one of its tranquil corners francis christie found
42:37a striking sculpture by a forgotten artist
42:40so this is a wonderfully elegant bronze sculpture of what looks like a woman swimming and it's by an
42:54artist who back at the height of his career in the sort of 1970s and 80s he was one of the most popular
43:00artists at the royal academy now his name was sydney harpley and i'm wondering how this beautiful
43:08sculpture came to be yours well um my parents uh in 1985 went to the summer exhibition at the royal
43:15academy as they always did and uh they went into the sculpture room and the first thing my mum saw
43:21was this sculpture and she just completely fell in love with it uh but unfortunately it had the
43:26sold sticker on oh no so my dad without my mum knowing he contacted sculptor to find out that
43:33the nine hidden cast of them had all been sold roll on a couple of months later on my parents
43:39wedding anniversary there was a knock on the front door of the house and there was sydney harpley
43:43with his own copy to present to my mum wow from my father and that's how we've got it and about 10
43:51years ago uh she decided it would be the right thing to do to pass it on to james oh lucky you james
43:58and did your parents ever say what sydney harpley was like he was apparently a very charming man
44:04but i don't know anything else about it at all what's so interesting about seeing this sculpture is
44:09he was really interested by the female form and the female form in all different poses
44:16really became his sort of signature subject i think the movement that he achieves
44:23is amazingly elegant actually although bronze is such a hard material he's managed to capture this
44:32very free-flowing movement you kind of feel that she's just about to carve into the water with the
44:37elegance of her hand movements it's also technically incredible he's managed to cantilever
44:44the weight of bronze coming down to this single point on her knee he would have modeled this
44:51potentially in terracotta or in wax beforehand and he would have really worked with the foundry the
44:57bronze foundry to make sure that you know he had the weight and the distribution properly and she's
45:03literally floating in space he was formally trained um after second world war i mean he went to the
45:10hammers school of art he went to the royal college of art but actually a fact about him that i think is
45:16really important which is not so well known is that after second world war he actually worked in an
45:22artificial limb factory which meant that he spent his days modeling and casting artificial limbs and i
45:31think when you know that and therefore he must have had a really intricate knowledge of anatomy
45:39it's why his sculptures yeah are so good yeah because he knew exactly what a limb should look like
45:47so now that this sculpture is yours what do you like about it i love the way she sort of flows it's
45:54for a sculpture it's incredibly sort of lifelike and realistic and i just think it's just such an
46:01elegant piece to just sit and look at so hopefully someone who's not as well known now i think as he was
46:07back when your parents bought it but he's increasingly people are looking at his work again which is great
46:12and i think were this to come to auction today we'd probably put an estimate in the region of 3 000
46:17to 5 000 pounds oh wow i have no idea fantastic thank you
46:30a mystical mysterious looking bowl what can you tell me about him been in the family now for four
46:36generations belonged i understand originally to my great grandmother when she died it came to me
46:42i'm very happy to have it and what do you know about it other than the fact it's lelique and it's
46:48old lelique very little other than it always used to sit in the middle of my grandmother's dining table
46:54occasionally with some fruit in it but that's where it always was
46:57and there's more lelique in the family is it a collecting area yeah my sister has um one with
47:04shells on uh four shells on it uh which she got as a wedding present which is why when my grandmother
47:11died i was offered this one how wonderful well let's take a deep dive into this this shape is called
47:18coupe au vert so open cup we have six ladies or nymphs dancing in the water all around the edge and if you
47:27have looked carefully each one of these ladies is different in a different position different
47:32expression this pattern is called ondine and it was created by renee lelique in 1921. if we turn it
47:41over to the base we can see that it's impressed r lelique which means that this was created within his
47:49lifetime later on the r was removed it was just lelique and it also has here an etched signature
47:56lelique so if we sit it back down and take a look at the ladies they have this kind of vaseline look
48:02about them an opalescence which you can see really well on this dark background of the table that was
48:09achieved by adding colbert oxide to the glass whilst it was still hot now the thicker the glass was the
48:17slower the glass would cool down and that meant the deeper the opalescence why does that matter
48:24collectors of lelique want that opalescence to be really strong and the deeper the opalescence the
48:30more value they would ascribe to the piece so this shape was made in different designs and if you
48:36were starting to collect lelique you'd probably start with the pattern called coquille which sounds like
48:41what your sister has shells going around the outside that's right that's kind of the the starting
48:47points then next we have the poisson which has curling fish going around the outside a bit like
48:54the ladies here but the ladies the ondine is the next best one so your sister's bowl if it's about
49:01this size it's around 250 pounds poisson around 500 pounds but ondine wonderful opalescence lovely design
49:11it's what the collectors want if this were to come up at auction i'd expect it to fetch in the region of
49:19a thousand pounds that's very nice i did better than my sister you did thank you thank you
49:34what a lovely little card mascot which i assume is sort of stylized hair so how did you acquire it
49:40it was my dad's i understand he got it from a neighbor about 30 years ago my dad's not with
49:46us anymore and he loved the antiques roadshow and so i thought i'd bring it along and see what you
49:52had to say about it i don't know if you notice on the back here there's a mark right yeah and it's um
49:57it's copyright ael which is lejeune which although it sounds french i think it's english and it's 1920s
50:04oh it's right okay and i have a particular interest for it because um i'm pretty keen on on hairs myself
50:10right okay uh the reason is um it's a little bit inside my jacket it's everywhere anyway value he's
50:20lovely condition it's plated i would think at auction you're talking about between three and
50:24four hundred pounds okay yeah not bad at all yeah that's nice nice to know thank you
50:42well florence nightingale is the reason why we're here having this conversation florence
50:46nightingale obviously the really the founder of nursing modern nursing in britain and you've got two
50:51books related to her one is notes on nursing which is by florence nightingale the other is a book with
50:57a inscription in it which is in her hand and this is a book that she obviously owned at some point
51:02and she's written florence nightingale in it how did these two books come to you well for more years
51:09than i care to think of i had a dental practice and on the outside of the building there's an inscription
51:15that says florence nightingale left her hospital on this site to go to the crimea in october whatever
51:22it was yes and uh i had a walk-in cupboard in the basement where i kept my stock and after about 15
51:30years and cleared the rubbish at the back of the cupboard and i found these two books that's a very
51:37nice find isn't it yeah in a way this is the main event this is this is notes on nursing by florence
51:42nightingale published in 1860 and this is actually a first edition of it which is a rare book um it
51:47doesn't have a date on the title page the printer's name is harrison of pall mall and this is really
51:52one of the key books in medical history this is a distillation of everything florence nightingale
51:58had learnt about nursing both in the crimean war which as you say she left to go to from your
52:04your premises in harley street but also back at home and she really puts on its feet the idea of nursing
52:11as a profession and particularly a profession for women there's a very i think very moving introduction
52:18to it in her preface every woman or at least almost every woman in england has at one time
52:26or another of her life charge of the personal health of somebody whether child or invalid
52:34in other words every woman is a nurse i think that's something that resonates with at least half
52:39of the population yeah and it's a very slim book very concise and it certainly changed the face of
52:45medical history in britain so that's an important book first edition of 1860. i'm not quite sure
52:52the background of this one this is a book that she obviously owned well um there was a letter in there
52:57right which says uh from her brother to thanking them for helping organize florence's funeral right and
53:07they might like this book which was in her library it was one of her books as a memento so florence
53:14i think i think she died in 1910 obviously there were major public memorials for her there was one in
53:19st paul's cathedral and it sounds as though that was the occasion on which this was yes i think that's
53:24a gift they're two very nice things to have together i don't think they've always been together
53:28but it's a nice very nice provenance for this book right but of course it has some value not in
53:33fantastic condition you know it's seen some life perhaps in practical circumstances but the first
53:38edition of this in this condition i'd say 800 to a thousand pounds oh wow oh that yeah like everybody
53:45i'm saying that surprises me and then it's just nice to have florence nightingale's signature here
53:51albeit in pencil but i think we prefer a signature in pen but there's a reason why she wrote it in pencil so
53:57it is as it is i think that adds another few hundred pounds to the table here so i think
54:02everything here we're looking at maybe 1200 to 1500 pounds i draw true for it thank you my pleasure
54:07thank you very much thank you for your time
54:10i see an awful lot of jewelry and when i opened that i thought wow this is something i have never
54:21seen before the carving of the moonstone in their setting i just thought oh my gosh this is great
54:29craftsmanship what do you feel when you look at it well it was my mum's and my dad bought it for her it
54:36was always referred to as the moonstone she wore it i mean she was the kind of woman who thought
54:41wearing this was okay it's not for me so it reminds me of her the whole piece is about 1880
54:49it's english and this is sort of got a a romantic vision of a renaissance princess but what is so
54:56wonderful is you always look at the nose with hardstone cameos that's the easiest thing to get
55:03knocked off right and so if it gets worn a lot yes it can it can easily go so we always look at
55:09the nose or anything that's protruding and she certainly has her nose and she's got on these
55:14lovely natural pearls around the outside and sort of just highlighted with these rubies so of course
55:21you've got pearls which is for love you've got rubies for passion but where does a moonstone come from
55:28well it's part of the feldspar group you find it in brazil you can find it all over the world
55:33actually yeah but also what's lovely is that it's in its original fitted case and underneath
55:41there's the brooch fitting as well so it's here as a pendant if i take off the back and there it is
55:48which is lovely so often that gets lost yes so what do you think your father was thinking when he
55:53bought this well i think he bought it for his good-looking lady who he adored and that's why he bought
56:01this for her oh that's absolutely lovely i would say in the right auction that could be as much as
56:08five thousand pounds okay i don't know what to say i know that it's quite usual to say well it's not
56:16going anywhere but i don't wear it because i don't know what's happening to it maybe you should try to
56:22wear it yeah maybe i should i like it a lot more now that you've told me a lot more about it thank you very much
56:31it's wonderful to look back on a summer packed with so many treasures
56:35but before we go it's just time to return to trentum gardens in staffordshire to try out a local treat
56:41at the end of the day on the antiques roadshow i'm usually getting a bit peckish and what better
56:47than the local delicacy staffordshire oak cakes now these are a kind of heavy duty
56:53oak pancake and they were a staple of miners and potters in the 19th century made by local women
56:59i've got a slightly gourmet version cheese and bacon i've never had one before
57:03you all eaten these before right come on delicious all right we're going to scoff these
57:15from all of us here at trentum gardens from the antiques roadshow bye-bye
57:24berry berries a beacon of light making merry at christmas in a seasonal celebration on bbc
57:30eye player this and everything across the bbc is made possible because we're funded by you thank you
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