Today the Roadshow makes a return to Castle Howard in Yorkshire.
For more than 300 years,
home to successive generations of the Howard family.
One of the first things that strikes you when you look at
this magnificent house is it feels rather familiar.
That's not just because the Roadshow's been here before, but also,
remember that classic TV series Brideshead Revisited?
I loved watching it.
And this is where it was filmed.
The house was the brainchild of Charles Howard,
the third Earl of Carlisle.
And while construction work started in 1700,
it would be more than a century
before the house was finally completed.
Its crowning glory, a dome to rival St Paul's,
the first of its kind to grace a private residence in England.
Carlisle's ambitious little building project
soon became the talk of fashionable society.
And he and subsequent members of his family filled the house
with Roman sculptures, the greatest Old Masters,
and the finest furniture to be found anywhere in the land.
Let me show you around.
But the house and its glorious contents were nearly lost
when, in 1940, a fire tore through the south-east wing,
destroying many of the principal rooms.
Most worryingly of all, the dome,
at the centre of Castle Howard, completely collapsed.
The lead from the roof crashed down 70 feet
onto this marble floor below.
And, look, you can still see the marks in the floor.
But the family were determined to rebuild
and live in the house once more.
And by the 1960s,
the dome was reconstructed and rose once more over Castle Howard.
And all around are 1,000 acres of parkland and follies,
as ambitious as the house itself.
There's a temple, a pyramid,
one of the finest mausoleums in Europe.
We've set up the Roadshow on just one small part of it all -
the south parterre.
I'm rather enraptured by this doe-eyed early Victorian beauty.
But the question is, who is she?
Well, the portrait's been in the family for over 100 years.
We're not sure entirely who she is but family legend has it
that her son married a great-great-aunt of mine.
Probably in round about 1888.
We don't know that for certain,
because we don't know how old the picture is
and we don't know who painted it.
I might not be able to tell you who she is, specifically,
but what is so clear is that the artist, and indeed herself,
are giving us messages, they are trying to impart something.
And it begins with that extremely exotic, colourful-looking vase.
A sign of travel, a sign of broader horizons,
and understanding of culture beyond, possibly, the realms of Britain.
There you have, in the vase, so prominently,
so wonderfully painted as well, those white lilies,
a symbol of purity, a symbol of femininity,
a connection with the afterlife.
I mean, a flower that's used so constantly at funerals.
But what she's trying to say with those lilies
may be a bit more specifically imparted when we go to her wrist.
You've made that out, haven't you - you've seen what's on her wrist?
Well, I presume it is a miniature of a woman,
an older woman but, obviously, who it is, I don't know.
This has to be a member of the family.
So, therefore, because it's so prominently shown,
together with the other elements in the picture,
this must be a memorial image of some kind.
In her other hand she is holding what looks like a prayer book
and the shawl that she's wearing
seems to be specifically black for a purpose.
I think it is quite likely to be a memorial image.
And the memorial is to this lady who she is wearing,
in the form of a miniature upon her wrist.
That's interesting. Yeah. And so, one then begins to...
..understand and realise that what is a picture
of a very striking looking woman
is also something much deeper, much richer.
In fact, it puts one in mind of Pre-Raphaelite painting
that was to come about in this decade,
because I reckon it's done in the 1840s.
And another element that really strikes me about the picture
is her expression. There's a feeling of sympathy and empathy.
I can't be absolutely sure who it's by, but a name does come to mind
and that's an artist called Richard Buckner,
He was working around about this date and is a sort of...
..hangover from the work of Thomas Lawrence
and moving into the next phase and showing the influence
of people like William Etty.
It almost doesn't matter.
It's an image that delivers, on a poetic level, on a human level.
And I put a valuation of about £5,000 on it.
Wow! That's quite incredible.
I didn't expect it to be worth that much.
Thanks very much.
So this is a very cheeky little chappie
you brought us to take a look at today.
What's his story?
Well, basically speaking, he's been in the family.
He was my mother's and I think he was handed down from her mother
and he used to stand in the hallway
and then she passed him down to us and he just
epitomises an era which was totally different, I think.
We love him. Yeah. He's got this wonderful expression, here,
as if he's sort of forgotten something
and he's coming up with an excuse.
And if I look under his arm, here,
I can see that he's actually carrying a copy of the Times there.
You're absolutely right about it being, sort of,
a slightly different time.
If we turn him around we have the little stamp on the back.
In this corner, we've got
Riessner, Stellmacher and Kessel,
and that is the maker, so Austro-Hungarian.
They were founded in 1892 and went out of business in about 1945.
I think he was probably produced
sometime around the early part of the 20th century,
1900, 1910, something like that.
The whole thing is moulded and modelled in terracotta
and then it is cold painted.
So the paints are put on over the top which actually is why, today,
you get a lot of this sort of rubbing and flaking.
It's not sort of glazed over.
It's not sealed? It's not sealed.
In a funny sort of way, that sort of worked for him.
It sort of gives him an age. It does. Do you like him?
Do you love him? I absolutely love him.
Do you? Yeah, it's fabulous.
We normally have him stood next to the fireplace.
So, you know, this type of figure would have been very, very popular
in the early part of the 20th century and, you know,
it was made purely for decorative purposes, to be on display.
He is so fantastic. I think if he came up for auction today,
I think he would carry a presale estimate of between £800-£1,200.
Good God! Really? Wow!
It's a lovely thing. Wow, thank you so much!
I had no idea. Pleasure.
So, I think if you were sort of a cool and trendy person,
and you want to show that you're sort of up with what's going on,
in the art world, and sort of cultured,
you might buy or display something like this,
this woodblock engraving by Eric Ravilious.
I assume, therefore, you're a big fan of him.
Well, I do like him, yes.
Since I found out about him since having this, yes.
OK, so you didn't know what it was beforehand?
I didn't, actually, no.
I owned it for quite a few years
before actually realising who he was.
About 15 years ago,
I was helping to clear out the attics of my husband's grandmother.
We found lots of boxes up in the attics which were full of paintings,
her sister was a keen amateur watercolour painter,
and this was in it,
I was allowed to keep this one because I keep chickens
and this is of a cockerel.
Well, the cockerel actually is the key, here.
I hadn't seen this when I first saw it before,
and I thought, that's really quite interesting.
So I've done quite a bit of research,
and I found that it was actually printed on the back cover
of the Golden Cockerel Press Spring List in 1930.
OK. The Golden Cockerel Press were quite an influential and important
private press, employing many sort of leading artists of the day,
along with Ravilious and his colleague Edward Bawden.
So they sort of really pushed forward the revival
of British woodblock engraving
for which Bawden and, in particular, Ravilious is very well known for.
What's interesting about it is the fact
that we don't appear to know whether any had actually been sold.
Most of them were just printed on the back of the list,
but this is, very clearly, not one of those
and it's been signed by Ravilious,
which does make me wonder whether perhaps it was a gift to a friend.
And just listening to your story there with your sort of husband's
grandmother's sister, is that right?
That's right. Yes. Maybe she knew Ravilious.
And I wonder whether this was a gift to her,
if she was an artist, especially a watercolour artist.
Yes. I think it's the same sort of time, so, yeah.
I think Ravilious is having a real moment right now.
There have been exhibitions and there's a real sort of resurgence
of interest in what I think is quirkily British,
very appealing images.
It's something that would be very popular and my feeling is that,
if it came up for sale, you'd probably be looking at
somewhere in the region of £700.
Gosh, really? Wow.
Lovely. So, will it go back up on the mantelpiece, do you think?
I think it deserves some wall space now. Off the mantelpiece.
So it's been upgraded?
Yes!
So, you brought this chair in from the pub?
We have. My husband's mum bought it in the '50s in London at auction,
for £5.
Supposedly Queen Victoria sat in it, and that's all we know.
Made of oak, in the Gothic fashion, it was in a shop in Baker Street.
Right. The Baker Street Bazaar.
Baker Street Bazaar was a shop owned by TC Druce.
Thomas Charles Druce had this building
and at the very top of this building was a famous waxworks.
This famous waxworks, we all know the name of,
could have been used in that building as a prop.
So she had sat in the chair, but in the form of wax.
Possibly! Perfect!
Brilliant!
What's it worth? I don't know.
£1,200.
So, you brought me this box here and because I'm jewellery,
but it says aspirin, but I'm assuming there's no aspirins in here.
What am I going to find?
It's a box that my father brought back from India in 1945...
Oh, look at these. ..and, inside, there are diamonds.
Wow!
I haven't seen a box like this full of...
It says "aspirin" on the front
and then you have a pile of diamonds inside it.
Absolutely wonderful.
Now, there is a mixture here.
You've got moonstones, you've got white sapphires
and you do have little diamonds.
I mean, the value of the stones, because they're a mixed bag,
you're probably only looking at £600, something like that.
But I just love the fact that this hasn't been touched since 1945.
They're a good tonic, they're a good tonic!
Right, thank you very much. Yes. Thank you.
When I was a boy, I've always liked aviation and aviation pictures.
And I'm surrounded here by really great and exciting images
from the First World War and after,
and these are exciting to me because most paintings
you see of historic planes are done by people long after the event.
They're done retrospectively,
looking back to great moments in history.
I love these because I'm there. He was there.
And so you've got the immediacy of something painted at the time.
And I can see from the photographs he was in the Royal Flying Corps.
That's correct. Yes, indeed. So, tell me about him.
Well, Richard Sorton Ashby.
He was my wife's step-grandfather.
Originally he came from West London.
In his early years, he emigrated to British Columbia.
Right. But he came back to the UK in 1915.
And was he already an artist?
Not an artist, but a draughtsman.
That was his profession? Indeed.
So he was a pilot, seeing the things he drew?
Very much so, because he was flying, I understand,
across the Western Front.
Sort of, the Somme and Ypres, from April to September of 1917.
But some of these are later, so, clearly, he goes on with a passion,
painting aeroplanes.
Indeed. What have we got?
Well, we've got a busy dogfight scene.
The Red Baron, in one of those fantastic,
turbulent events above the skies of the Western Front in 1917.
A fantastic scene it must have been, and he was part of that.
And then you've got a much more conventional,
not conventional but a plane-to-plane dogfight.
A Bristol fighter attacking a Fokker triplane.
Again, a daily scene in the skies above the Western Front
but brought to life for us, much better than any photograph.
You know, this is how it was.
Here, we've gone post-war, which is how we know he continues.
This is a Vickers Vimy and this is the Vimy
that carried Alcock and Brown
on the first transatlantic crossing in 1919.
And, finally, and I think, for me, the most exciting, in 1931,
when Britain won the Schneider Trophy,
the great racing seaplane trophy, outright.
Here is this painting of that plane winning the race.
And he must've been there. Do you think he was there?
I'm convinced he was, because there is a small series.
Right. On that very subject.
And, down the bottom are signatures.
Now, I can read those signatures, as you can.
Those are the pilots who flew that team of winning planes
in the Schneider Trophy.
What happened to him?
Well, at the end of the war, he was sponsored to...
..retrain as a photographer. Right.
And eventually ended up as the official photographer
with HJ Heinz and Co.
So, advertising? Yes.
So, we've got four here.
How many have you got?
In total, 27 military and 30-odd civilian, so about 60-odd.
60-70 images. Now, valuations are a bit tricky
because we have here an artist who has no track record in the market.
But they're great images and they're great contemporary images.
So, let's begin with the bulk.
You've got about 70.
If we say they would sell between £200-£400 each,
we're getting to 14,000, something like that, but this is the star.
The Schneider Trophy, wonderful moment, he was there,
it's got the signatures. What more could you want?
And this is going to be between £1,000 and £2,000.
Gosh. So, 16,000 altogether.
Splendid.
I do love red boxes.
And I love them even more when I open it
and there's a very large diamond.
But there's something wrong with this box.
It doesn't have my name in it,
it has someone else's!
Who is Rachel? That's me.
How did your name get there?
It belonged to my grandmother,
who then passed it on to my mother,
who, sadly, died just less than two years ago
and it was in her will, they were left to me.
So I noticed that the jewellers were in Grimsby.
That's right. Why was that?
Because my grandfather had a trawling business.
And during the war he used the trawlers
to help transport food and bring soldiers back
but, when that started to decline,
he started to sell some of his fleet and with the sale of the fleet,
he decided to buy some rings as an investment.
And so when did your mother get this?
She must have got it when my grandmother died.
She died in 1981, so my mum would have inherited it then.
And has it been worn? I haven't worn it, but my mum wore it,
my grandmother wore it. My mum wore it for her diamond wedding.
Oh, fantastic! Just, yes, about two years ago.
And what about this one here?
This one, again,
all I know, it's an opal with diamonds around the side.
My mum used to wear this a lot.
Because I think she felt, oh, that's a bit too...
A bit sparkly, and she wasn't a sparkly person,
but she used to wear this one.
It's, sort of, 1915, I would say, that sort of period,
and you've got the little cushion-shaped diamonds around it,
and it's set in platinum.
But what is really interesting about these two stones
is that this is an opal,
and it is all about the colour.
And we've got the white diamond...
..and it's about the lack of colour.
Right. Now, this is about five carats in size.
When I look at it, I put it against the whiteness of a card
and it's like I want to see
how transparent it is against the whiteness of the card.
Now, this has got some colour in it,
some yellow in it, and it does have some flaws inside,
which are fairly obvious, but, again, it's beautifully cut.
And so that's maximising the brilliance
that's coming back to the eye.
Yes. And that is what I'm looking for with this.
Well, in an auction,
I would say opals have really come back into favour
so you would be looking in the region of about £2,000.
For this one. Yes.
That's more than I thought.
That's lovely. And this one,
I would say you're looking round about £15,000-£20,000.
That is a lot of money! Oh, God!
Phew, yes.
I'm glad I'm sat down!
Oh, wow!
That's amazing, yes.
Thank you very much.
It was very kind of you to take me round some of the Castle Howard
this morning. It was a fantastic wander about.
Where did we find that Buddha?
Well, we call the room Lady Cecilia's sitting room.
Lady Cecilia was my mother.
Oh, right. And my father gave most of the jade that you saw there
to her as presents, usually as Christmas presents. So...
Did he buy them? Or did he...
No, he collected them himself, indeed.
Yes. Did he? Yes. You said jade.
I said jade. You're going to tell me something else, aren't you?
I'm going to ask you something else. How do you know it's jade?
Well, not being the expert, I'm going to let you tell me
how this happens. Ha! OK.
It can be quite difficult telling jade from lesser hard stones
and, indeed, glass.
One thing you can do...
..is to put it on your cheek.
And it's freezing cold.
Even in this sunny weather, it's cold.
So I'm happy with that.
The Chinese have been carving jade for 10,000 years,
or something like that.
How do I know he's Buddha?
Well, the top knots in his hair are very characteristic.
His bald patch in the middle, which is characteristic.
His ear lobes, which are elongated,
and immortals always have elongated ear lobes.
He's got the right robes for it.
He's in a mudra. That's a position and there are, I don't know,
50 different mudra of the positioning of the hands and feet
and he's in the full one,
where his hands are like that and his legs crossed over
and the soles turned upwards
and that is very characteristic of the Buddha.
I think this was probably...
..cut in the very early years of the 20th century, probably about 1910,
1920, somewhere around there. Right.
Age is not the dominant factor with jade.
One of them is the purity of the stone itself.
How close it is to absolute whiteness.
That's what the Chinese would go for.
This one is pretty good.
It's got a greenish tinge and one corner has got...
..a bit of black which has come through.
It's cut away there, but it's running through the stone.
But that's minor.
I think...
..that that would make somewhere around...
..£25,000-£35,000.
Really?
Well. My father was obviously a good buyer.
He was... I've seen them all.
He's a very good buyer.
He had a good eye, or good advice.
This is a real deja vu moment for me
because it reminds me of the fashions I used to wear
in the late '60s and early '70s.
And clearly, the theme here is Mary Quant.
Absolutely. So what's your connection with all that?
1972, I had a call to say they needed a bus driver.
Mary Quant wanted me to be their bus driver.
Yeah. And they flew me to Milan
and I found myself driving a London double-deck bus,
an old RT, through the length of Italy, Greece, France, Spain,
Portugal, and then back to London.
The bus was a beauty school
where we invited young ladies onto the bus
to be met by Mary Quant Cosmetics. Wow.
The concept must have been a sensation.
It was. We were inundated with people.
And we were trying to sell Mary Quant Cosmetics.
That was the purpose of it.
This photograph here was what it was like on the inside of the bus
and this one shows Mary coming to examine the bus on the day
that we had actually decided that it was ready to move.
She looks so cool. And you in the bowler hat, there, I presume.
Yes, Mary Quant presented me with a bowler hat
and I had to wear it on as many occasions as I could.
Sadly it's met its demise, and I don't have that any longer.
But I have some of the other clothes I was wearing at the time.
The jacket there, I can just about get it on my arm now.
Well, 1972 was the year she launched her Special Recipes cosmetics,
and those Special Recipes,
I think it was five skincare products and six make-up products.
So that brings it all together.
It was the Mary Quant stuff that really struck a chord with me.
Because when I was at art school, I was at Hornsey in the late '60s,
my fashion tutor just raved about Mary Quant's fashion ethos
and her way of designing clothes.
And she was really the one that led the vanguard for designing
and making clothes for the young fashionista.
And it was her fashion ethos that was probably most responsible
for my trajectory at the beginning of my career.
I became a hairdresser
in a salon where all the stars used to come.
I cut hairstyles like the Mary Quant hairstyle, the geometric bobs.
She really did influence me.
Well, she influenced me as well, by an indirect way,
because I started off as her bus driver and engineer.
And I made certain that the bus was working, all the way through.
I became one of the make-up artists.
Really? Because I didn't realise how good I was in an artistic fashion.
Amazing. So, through Mary Quant, you discovered your vocation.
Indeed! So, down to valuation.
You've got these amazing photographs.
They're very personal ones.
They're unique.
I would say they've got to be 100-150 each. Gosh.
This one, 50-100.
Wow. Connected with those. Yes.
But the poster is the piece.
Yes, it is. That was the 1972 launch of Special Recipes.
Yes. £500-£1,000.
So, altogether,
a good £1,500 to £1,800.
My gosh. I've got two of these posters.
Thank you very much!
I'll probably go to a museum.
So, there's a particular reason
why we've come into The Great Hall of Castle Howard.
As we know, there was a terrible fire here in 1940
and the ceiling above us,
that wonderful painting, originally done by Antonio Pellegrini,
crashed to the ground.
Now, the question is,
how did the restorer have enough information
to be able to replicate it and put it back?
Am I right in thinking that you may have the answer?
Yes, I do. And you're holding it there in your hand.
And this is the model that was created
from the photograph that my mother took with a Box Brownie camera
when she was a young girl.
So, your mother took a photograph of the ceiling prior to the fire,
which then, what, became the only record of that painting above us?
Yes. How extraordinary.
So, how fortuitous.
Your mother, what sort of age was she then?
I think she would have been an early teenager
with a Box Brownie given to her for Christmas,
and, like any excited young girl,
she would have found a reason to probably photograph the painting
by lying on her back on the floor and going click!
So, there was no other source material for the restorer
to be able to replicate what was lost,
except your mother's photograph?
That's right. And then, based on that photograph,
they also pieced together examples of the artist's work,
colours and textures, and then they were able to create this model here.
So, we're looking at a painting by the restorer, Scott Medd,
done in 1962, a Canadian restorer,
which is totally reliant upon your mother's photograph,
fortuitously taken at our very feet.
Absolutely.
How come your mother was here?
Well, she's part of the family.
She was George Howard's first cousin
and she would play here with all the rest of the members of the family.
So, we're holding what looks like a gouache,
a thick sort of pasty watercolour, preparatory work by Scott Medd,
based on your mother's photograph,
from which, or related to the painting above,
which he then restored.
That's right, yes.
Well, what a thought.
Yes.
I mean, as to value, it's a documentary piece.
This is really what it is, rather than a major work of art.
I'm confident putting a valuation of around about £1,500 on it.
Thank you very much indeed.
To mark our 40th anniversary series on the Roadshow,
we have a new game for you.
This year, our experts have set me, and you at home, a challenge -
to work out which antique would have been a smart investment
when the Roadshow started way back in 1977.
Like a game of Snakes and Ladders, the value of antiques can fluctuate,
and we have three items here, brought along by you, Will,
our ceramics specialist,
and so the idea here is to assess which one of these
has skyrocketed in value in 40 years,
which has more or less kept pace with inflation
and which one has actually lost value.
So, how do we begin to come to a judgment about these?
Well, let's look at what we've actually got in front of us.
By you, we have an absolutely sensational piece of Ruskin pottery,
made circa 1907 in West Smethwick,
just outside of Birmingham, in a high-fire glaze,
which was the most difficult to achieve.
And William Howson Taylor, who owned that company,
was an absolute master at what he was producing.
It is beautiful.
It is a sensational thing. A beautiful piece.
In the middle... A little saucy piece.
A little saucy piece. I like to bring you a little saucy piece.
We are going to scoot over to Italy.
and we are actually looking at a piece that dates from circa 1930,
and it's designed by a lady called Helen Konig Scavini,
and was manufactured at the firm of Lenci.
It's called The Girl On The World.
That's the affectionate name for her.
And a beautiful piece, you know, all hand-painted, beautifully modelled.
But it also captures that essence of the '30s.
That bit of humour. That bit of fun, bit of wit.
But beautifully executed.
And then to my side here...
Moorcroft. Absolutely.
William Moorcroft.
One of the absolute greats of 20th-century ceramics.
And this is an early piece, circa 1912-1915.
Pansy on white.
A rare pattern,
a wonderful shape,
and really, sums up the work of Moorcroft at this period
when he's out there, you know, really finding his feet
and becoming the great master of ceramics that he was.
All right, folks. Well, there it is.
So, what do we think?
Would it help you if I told you what these sold for?
What, in 1977?
Indeed. 1977, a virtually identical vase to that sold for £440.
Wow! A lot.
That equates in today's money to £2,500.
In real terms. Right. OK.
In 1977...
I'm enjoying this, yes?
..£280,
which equates in today's money to £1,600.
And this one here, in '77 again, sold for £480,
which is the equivalent of 2,700.
The question is, where have they gone from those comparable prices?
Right, folks. Remember, what we're trying to do here is work out
which of these has skyrocketed in value over the last 40 years,
which has more or less kept pace with inflation,
and then which has actually gone down in real terms since 1977?
What do we think about the vase?
Excellent, but mass-produced.
Excellent, but mass-produced?!
There was a lot produced.
A lot produced.
OK. Not a lot produced of our lovely lady here.
And then the Moorcroft...
If I was just going to think about what we see coming in here,
we see a lot of Moorcroft on the Roadshow.
And I'm not sure how fashionable that is.
I think she is uber-fashionable. Mm-hm.
But this has a very modern look,
so I wonder if collectors now would find this a very desirable piece.
So, come on then. There's a lot of muttering here
but I'm not getting any suggestions.
Which do we think has gone up most in value?
I think this one. MURMURS OF APPROVAL
And this, I would say, has probably not done as well.
You think that's about right?
And this one kept...
It was very expensive at the time and kept its value.
So, you are saying then - three, two, one.
I think you've set me a trap there,
and I think I'm falling right into it, but, yes.
I'm going to have to retire and work harder for the next game.
You've won.
APPLAUSE
Well done, you!
Oh, my goodness!
You know what it is, we spend too much time together.
We do spend too much time together. I know how much you love these.
But I mean, these are all three fabulous items
and, you know, it just shows in real terms where markets do go.
You know, you've got the great master that is Moorcroft,
you've got the wonder that is Ruskin, but in the middle here,
you've got my absolute joy, my own love, and actually,
she's going home with me tonight
because I love her and a piece of Lenci.
But well done, you. I take my hat off.
So, where do you keep this little cabinet?
I actually keep it in the bedroom, as a jewellery box.
Oh, right. That sounds very extravagant,
but it's not quite like that.
Has it been in the family a long time or...?
No, I actually bought it, I think it was around about 1995,
and it was at a wonderful country house sale just outside York,
Nun Monkton, a place called the Priory.
So, how much did this cost you?
It was round about £350,
which at the time was quite a lot of money.
So, the cabinet is actually made out of oak.
Solid oak. But the front is actually veneered.
And you have these veneered sections, and to me,
this parquetry section,
it's almost like what you'd expect to see on a kaleidoscope,
all the facets put together.
But to me, what holds it together is inside,
when you see this drawer arrangement.
Now, the idea for these drawers, really, is a spice cabinet.
It is a spice cabinet.
It is. Oh, I'm delighted because I wondered.
It's got superb little pear drop handles, which are totally original.
It's 17th century, so it dates back to about Charles II.
So...
1670, 1680.
Right. These are original.
The hinges are original.
And this is called the escutcheon, that's original.
I would put a value on this
in this condition
of £1,200.
Oh!
Fantastic!
Thank you very much.
That's fantastic!
So, here we have a painting that appears to be quite straightforward.
It is signed in the bottom left, W Webb,
for William Edward Webb.
On the reverse, it gives us the title of the scene,
which is Cornish Village Near Penzance.
So, so far, so normal.
But I think there's a bit more to this than meets the eye.
But before we discuss that,
let's hear more from you about how you came by it.
The painting has been in the family for, we believe, around 100 years.
It was my grandfather's, in his study.
And we...as a small boy, I used to sit and look at it regularly.
But the one thing that my late father
always spoke to his brothers about
was they were always sceptical
whether it was a fishing village in Penzance.
William Webb, he was very prolific.
I mean, he was one of these artists, late-19th-century painters,
who painted a vast amount of pictures.
I mean, harbour scenes, coastal views...
That was really his sort of forte.
And what I think has happened here
is I think this is actually a relatively...
sort of set piece for Webb.
And indeed these certain elements do appear in other works
that have appeared on the market recently.
So, I think, when he approached this,
he would have taken, say, the steps
and the small sort of punt next to it
and I think he would have inserted that.
He then would have seen the Ship Inn and the sort of cathedral
and he would have then put that there,
so I think he really worked from other works or perhaps sketches,
and brought these pictures together.
They were these sort of pastiches, really, of English coastal life.
I mean, he did of course paint other scenes from life in situ,
but that's what I think has happened here because to me,
this doesn't look like Cornwall.
So, how's the identification got on the back?
Well, it's possible that at some point in the 19th century
or more recently, a dealer only too aware of the fact
that late-19th-century Cornish pictures have a strong market
or had a strong market,
possibly, the identification was added.
Who knows? It did happen.
So, as we can see, the painting isn't, unfortunately, dated.
However, William Webb was born in 1864 and died in 1903, from memory.
So, I would have thought this was sort of painted some time...
sort of 1880s, 1890s, I would have thought. Right.
A very good painting as well, I think.
It's loosely painted, some details are weaker than others.
You sort of see the building here,
it's sort of not... The perspective, perhaps, isn't as convincing
as you might expect. But actually, I think other elements sort of are.
I mean, I think, as an image overall,
it gives that sort of feeling of coastal, country life.
And to give you an idea of value,
I would say it's worth somewhere between £1,000 and £2,000.
Right. Right.
Very interesting. Yeah.
Brilliant.
Well, I have to say, this is a very impressive collection of snuff boxes
you've brought us to take a look at today.
And with this wonderful backdrop that we have here,
these wouldn't have looked out of place
with a gentleman in this house in the 18th century.
Are you a collector? Have you inherited them?
I started a while ago collecting snuff boxes
and decided that I needed to go in some direction
and so I found out about John Obrisset.
They have a place in history.
People used to love snuff.
I think it was discovered by Christopher Columbus 500 years ago
when he saw the natives inhaling this sort of fermented,
dried and ground tobacco.
And in fact, back then, they were using it for medicinal purposes,
for curing ailments such as sort of gout or toothache.
We know better today.
Is there one in particular that we've got here today,
your first example?
Well, it's not the first example,
but that one was bought online
and it only cost £34.
That seems like a very good buy to me.
Because nobody knew what it was.
You mentioned John Obrisset
and predominantly the boxes that we have here are by John Obrisset.
I mean, we've got one here.
What these are, these are made of horn, so they're pressed.
Pressed horn. And John Obrisset was working 1705-1728.
Yes. And he was listed as a sort of a medallist, tortoiseshell worker.
And, indeed, as we see here, a horn worker.
And this one is a depiction of Charles I.
Just great, great examples.
Here, we've got the equestrian knight on horseback there.
Then we've got this wonderful coat of arms here,
which is really, really incredibly crisp decoration on there.
All manner of different types, you know, celebrating moments in time.
You started out 12 years ago. What was your budget?
Well, I'm an old age pensioner and I live on the basic pension,
and so when I first started,
I would buy a box for £10 and sell it for five.
And I thought, there's something wrong here.
I'm not doing it right.
And so I gradually found out more and more about the boxes
and now I try to trade up.
I do the opposite.
And I think actually, in a way, what you've done,
is what quite a lot of collectors do,
but you've been very clever about it.
And I think the idea of trading up
is what a lot of collectors try and do.
Yes. Not all succeed.
But clearly, you know, you've done that well.
If you started on a £10 box and, you know, we're now looking at this,
this fantastic collection.
Now, I also know that this isn't the extent of the collection,
that actually, in the collection, you've now amassed about 50.
Yes. In the collection.
This is only a tiny part. A tiny part of the collection.
Value. Today, I think your collection is probably worth
somewhere between... £20,000-£30,000.
I don't know about that.
It sounds a lot of money to me.
Well, you've been such a wonderful help today,
one of our wonderful stewards.
You've had a busy day. You casually said, "I've got a coffee set."
What a coffee set!
Where did you get it from?
Well, I actually got it as a wedding present.
Before that, my grandparents gave it to my great-aunt as a wedding present.
As a wedding present. Which was in about the 1960s, early 1960s.
She never used it, so she then passed it on to me.
Do you use it? No.
But I wasn't sure if it was proper silver
or if it was silver painted and...
Well, that's the point. It is silver.
It's a thin layer of silver.
It's by a very famous German factory, Rosenthal,
who made fine porcelain.
And this, although you got it in the '60s,
you can trace it back to...it's '30s.
It's pure deco.
Price-wise, comfortably £400-£600.
Good Lord.
Yeah. I definitely won't use it now!
An absolutely classic shape with instantly recognisable decoration.
For me, a wonderful example,
but what's your story?
It belonged to my stepmother's grandfather,
and when my stepmother inherited it,
she lived in Sheffield and was blitzed, this was rescued.
We inherited it and I know nothing about it.
It is the work of Dalton.
Dalton Lambeth at the end of the 19th century.
And in terms of the decorator, it is that great artist Hannah Barlow.
The date of it is going to range somewhere around 1870-1880.
And this is absolutely classic of her work.
She loved her animals, she loved decorating them.
The work here on the central band is by her.
The upper bands were decorated by fellow artists.
Your Blitz survivor today is worth somewhere in the region
of £500-£600.
Last time the Antiques Roadshow was in Castle Howard,
you were but a young girl, Lucy.
And you came along to see our military expert Bill Harriman.
I did indeed. Just remind us about that day.
I was only 14,
we'd been dropped off by our parents to be entertained for the day,
and they rang and said we're going to be filmed.
So we stayed for the day and Bill saw my collection.
And your collection was?
It was a collection of postcards and letters and jewellery
gifted to a gentleman who used to come to my parents' pub
by a lady who, when she was younger, she was the nurse
for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as it toured Europe.
Wow.
These are some of the photographs of the Indians who came over.
Who's this? Georgie.
Georgie Standing Bear.
At the age of 18 months. Isn't he magnificent?
Sitting there with all his finery.
He looks like his father.
Who's this? Sam Lone Bear.
Again, magnificent hair.
This was the only way that people in Europe
could actually see what the Wild West was like.
And they were very, very popular spectacles.
Here we have the man himself, William Frederick Cody,
better known to history as Buffalo Bill.
And more beautiful pictures of authentic Indians.
You mentioned Laura Standing Bear?
Yeah, that's Georgie's mother. Oh, right.
I think this is, has to be the sort of piece de resistance
of the collection.
There is a tremendous amount of interest in Buffalo Bill.
One of these colour postcards is going to be in the region
of £50-£60.
Each.
The studio cards around about £100-£150 each.
And we turn to this wonderful collection of beadwork.
With this provenance,
I think you've got to look at
between 500-750.
That's brilliant, actually.
Very brilliant.
It must have been pretty nerve-racking,
14, 15 years of age, suddenly find yourself on BBC One television.
It was. And then when it finally was aired,
because we lived in the local, largest pub in the area at the time,
the pool room was suddenly filled with 50 people watching it
on the big screen while I hid upstairs
and wouldn't come down for fear of whatever might happen.
We didn't think it was going to be on,
but it was actually the final piece on the end of the show.
You've not seen Bill since we were last here at Castle Howard.
No, not yet. Your moment's come, because Bill is just over here.
Bill, do you want to come and join us?
I know you've not heard what we've been talking about.
This is Lucy who you last met
in Castle Howard with her Buffalo Bill memorabilia.
Fantastic. That's Georgie, who you saw...
He was the son... Yes... ..of Chief Standing Bear
in part of the collection.
And since then I've actually been in touch
with his great-great-grandson.
That's fantastic.
After the recording with Bill, you started doing research of your own,
didn't you, into the collection?
I did indeed. Using the internet, I managed to find
the great-great-grandson of George Standing Bear,
the chief who was one of the main people in the collection that
Margaret Piggott would look after and talk to and taught English to.
So I got in touch with him
and he explained more about why they were on the tours and everything,
and the conditions of their lives and everything,
and what happened to them afterwards, which was fantastic.
I will one day save up enough pennies to go to Dakota
and take it, and let it be on display,
because it should be shared by everybody.
There's no good just sitting in a drawer
for me to look at occasionally when I think of it.
Especially when it's so important to people,
it's their lives and their history.
I think that's wonderful.
It's fabulous, isn't it?
So it's something that you saw...
Yeah... ..all those years ago here at Castle Howard
and it has grown and taken on a life of its own, this collection now.
It has. I'm just flabbergasted.
I just love Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, the whole thing.
Yes. They call me Buffalo Bill at work, you know.
And other things, Lizzie.
Yeah, quite.
It's just fantastic, thank you.
Thank you.
Architectural gems, yes,
but I think in many ways the sort of fabulous stately homes
have now almost become a little bit sort of like a theme park,
I suppose, in some strange way.
But I think you've been to the sort of the mother
of all theme parks, Disneyland.
Yes, I was. In 1957, when I was 17,
my father decided to drive with my mother
and my two younger brothers from Pennsylvania to California.
And Mother knew that Disneyland had opened in 1955.
When we were at Disneyland,
my brothers and I went on special tea cups revolving.
We made ourselves sick, we ate all the food.
Do what children are meant to do, I love it.
Exactly, exactly.
Well, the cream on the cake was that Mother took us into the shop
and we were allowed to choose each some of these cartoons.
So each of us, I think, had three.
They probably cost about 10 each.
I don't think that they paid any more than that.
We then got back in the car
and drove all the way back to Pennsylvania.
So these were bought, effectively, or given to you,
very kindly by your parents, as sort of high-end souvenirs, I suppose.
They were. Absolutely.
But of course, when, as we grew up,
we didn't pay any attention to our cartoons.
I had them under the bed, actually, for the last ten years,
and I only brought them out because you were coming to Castle Howard.
So what we're looking at, effectively,
are a series of, let's see, ten cells.
So these are animation cells.
So what your parents actually gave you is a piece of the film.
Each one of these cells was hand-painted
and actually used in the film,
and we've got a Disney label on the back
which certifies them as authentic pieces. That's right.
Now, when you're looking at things like this,
there are a number of things to look at.
So the first thing is the characters shown.
So I think we've got a couple of dogs here which look to me as if they come from Lady And The Tramp.
I think you've got Bull, and I think that's Trusty the bloodhound.
Yes. All important characters, but we're not talking Lady or Tramp.
And then we've also got down here, I think, is that Chip and Dale?
Yes, Chip and Dale. Appropriate characters for this show, I feel.
Perhaps it's from The Lone Chipmunks, which I think was 1954.
Possibly, possibly. Possibly, because it could have been
from somewhere else. So again, not the greatest of films.
So we haven't got the most important characters
and we haven't really got key scenes.
And I notice just down here on this is John Darling,
but there's a little bit of damage as well.
I know. In terms of value, the damaged ones,
not really greatly valuable, because you can have them restored,
but they're always restored cells.
But as for the rest,
and I think particularly some of the ones where you've got
the real character of those characters shining through,
with great sort of expressions,
we may be talking a couple of hundred pounds.
Oh, well, that's lovely.
Well, multiply it by ten and it gets even lovelier, doesn't it,
because we're talking a couple of thousand pounds
for your collection of souvenirs. Oh, my goodness.
I wouldn't, I would never have dreamed of that.
Never.
Well, when you arrived at my table earlier today,
you tipped all these medallions out
from rather, dare I say it, grubby bank bags,
like they were sort of tiddlywinks.
True. Where did you get them?
Well, an elderly friend gave them to my grandchildren to play with.
And I think the name on the medals is her father-in-law.
Right, right. Yeah, so every medal has got the name of JA Metcalfe.
Were they a local family?
No, I think they were from Cardiff or Bristol, that area.
Yeah, well, that's interesting, because you say Cardiff.
A lot of the medals are actually from Wales itself.
They date from the sort of 1890s to the early 1900s.
It's a really exciting time to be a cyclist.
JA Metcalfe was around when road racing
was reaching a peak of sort of excellence.
I think by the...certainly the late 1880s,
there were over 500 cycling clubs in Britain,
and each club probably had 500, 1,000 members.
So there were races everywhere.
And let's face it, when you won a race, you got the gold medal.
And there's quite a number that Metcalfe won here.
Just to show you one of them, I'll put my specs on.
He took part in a quarter mile amateur championship race in 1897,
and he won this,
and it was organised by the National Cyclists Union.
So what do you think they're made of?
I never thought about it.
Well, believe it or not, you've got at least six gold ones.
In fact, you've got eight or nine gold ones.
And, I mean, just by the colour I can pick them out.
There's these three here.
They're gold. And those three there
are solid gold.
And you've got other gold ones.
And to show that you got some jolly decent prizes as a cyclist,
this is a nine carat and enamel cycling medal dated 1893.
And obviously partly sponsored by Raleigh,
the great bike-making company.
So are you going to treat them with a little bit more respect,
or is that...? Yes! There's some silver ones,
there's a few that are base metal.
Three 18-carat ones worth 500 each.
That's 1,500.
Three 15 carat ones worth 400 each,
that's another £1,200.
We've got 150 there,
we've got another 150 there.
Another 100 there.
And then you've certainly got another 30,
£40 each for some of the others.
You've got £3,000 to £5,000 worth of medallions here.
Golly. Hey, they'll be wanting them back!
Thank you very much. Thank you.
This is a femme fatale
and I'm already under her spell.
Tell me about it with you.
Well, I absolutely love it, and always have done.
It came to me through my husband's family,
who came over from France in probably the 1890s.
And he had a great-aunt Cecile,
and when she died, she left everything she had to him,
because he was the only male relative living at the time.
I really loved it and when I became a nurse I used it as a belt buckle.
My goodness. On my nurse's belt.
A nurse's buckle.
Never thought anything about it, really.
Well, let's try and imagine the sort of woman
that would have bought this object in 1900 in Paris.
This would have been only a tiny part of her arrangement.
She'd be extremely unconventional and her dress and her shoes
and her carriage and her interior design
would have echoed everything we see here.
And it's signed by one of the most famous, if not the most famous,
jeweller in Paris in 1900,
Rene Lalique. Yes.
And in my view, Lalique is not a jeweller at all, he's a...
He's an artist of the highest possible calibre
that just happened to express himself in jewellery and glass.
There's always a hint of darkness about Lalique's work,
almost a sort of morbid quality.
And in a sense this is a Medusa head in a way, isn't it?
Yes. That's how I've looked at it.
She's an unhappy girl.
She's in the Renaissance tradition, she's wearing a ferronniere,
which is a Renaissance brow ornament.
And he's picked that up with two shades of blue enamel.
And the face is of gold, but the hair is of silver.
I think we can safely say that this is a towering work of art.
As, indeed, most of Lalique's work is.
But it is, of course, a functional object.
You found that out when you were a nurse, didn't you? Yes, I did.
And I think we'd better have a little look and see
how it really does work. It simply comes apart like that
and there is the buckle.
We have this haunting, strange creature,
but she may be a strange creature that was well known at the time,
because she does have some relevance to the image of Sarah Bernhardt.
Ah, yes. And Sarah Bernhardt was Lalique's most important patron.
And enormously famous throughout Europe.
Well, this is stunning stuff.
Lalique things are hugely sought after
and their prices have escalated enormously, recently.
And I think there will be fierce competition for this object
wherever it was sold.
And I haven't really a shadow of doubt that any Lalique collector
will be prepared to pay
between £8,000 and £10,000 for your buckle.
Thousand pounds? Oh, my goodness me.
To think I was wearing it to work all those years
and never thought about it.
Frightening the patients, presumably.
Marvellous thing, isn't it? Well, that is amazing.
Well, thank you very much.
As we've been filming here today in the grand surroundings
of Castle Howard, I've been imagining what it must have
been like to come to the parties here.
Fabulous parties of the '20s and '30s.
And if I'd been invited, I might have been lucky enough
to wear a gorgeous Art Deco cloak
like this one brought along by one of our visitors.
A girl can dream.
From the Antiques Roadshow team here at Castle Howard,
bye-bye.