Antiques Roadshow guest did ‘happy dance’ at discovery of valuable ‘ugly’ sculpture
An Antiques Roadshow guest didn't know how to react when his "ugly" sculpture was given a top value.
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An Antiques Roadshow guest didn’t realise a pricey sculpture was in his home, leading him to do a “happy dance”.
The PBS daytime series saw a guest bring in an unusual item in the shape of a folk art root sculpture which he didn’t even know that he had.
He explained: “Well it came from South Jersey and believe it or not, it was in the home that was purchased in the eave of the garage for several years, we never even realised that it was there.”
Expert Ken Farmer then questioned his initial reaction and if he was “afraid to pick it up”.
The guest replied: “I think I started to dance around and my niece described it as the happy dance, because it was something so peculiar that I knew it was special.”
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Farmer elaborated: “A piece of folk art has to have a lot of things going for it to be great.
“It has to draw you in and that’s exactly what this does.
“Back around 1890 or 1900, somewhere in that time period, somebody decided that they wanted to make something out of roots and once they got started, they couldn’t stop.
“It has a great old finish on it and it’s kind of like those spooky trees in the old tales.
“It fascinates me, it drives me crazy and it kind of scares me too and that's exactly what something like this should do for you.”
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Farmer continued: “There’s a little bit of wear up here but I’ll tell you something, to a non-folk art person, this is probably ugly as a mud fence but to people who collect folk art, it’s a thing of great beauty.
“So much detail, several different snakes, birds, a cat, my favourite, another cat and a horse head.
“And as far as value is concerned, we really agonised over that part of it.”
It was then time for the expert to give his appraisal which the guest didn’t appear to expect.
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Farmer concluded: “I would say a good auction estimate would be $30,000 (£23,500) to $50,000 (£39,100).”
The sculpture’s owner nodded awkwardly before responding: “That’s incredible. That’s really welcome news. That’s unbelievable."
He then took a pause before adding: “Wow and that is just really wonderful.”
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on PBS.
