Dunrobin Castle Antiques Roadshow

We've taken the "high road" about as far north as you can go -

County Sutherland in the Scottish Highlands,

where the heather comes up with a flourish, and the whisky goes down the same way.

I said we're taking the high road,

but we're taking the RAILROAD, as our venue has its own station.

In the mid-19th century the company building this stretch went bust,

so the third Duke of Sutherland took over the project himself.

If you'd your own railway, wouldn't you put the station near your home?

That's what's happened here, and it's very useful for visitors.

The castle is over the trees. Those old railway engines were noisy,

and one wouldn't want them pulling up to one's front porch, would one?

Dunrobin has been the home of the Earls and Dukes of Sutherland since the 13th century,

and it's now open to the public.

It's a majestic building,

with gardens inspired by those of Versailles.

Fitting for a powerful family once the largest landowner in Europe,

with 1.3 million acres to its name.

High above the castle, a statue of the first Duke of Sutherland

surveys a thinly-populated landscape.

Here, in the early 19th century,

some 5,000 tenants were evicted, to bring about what were called "agricultural improvements".

The scheme went disastrously wrong, the Clearances were resented,

so the inscription on the statue,

which was built a year after his death in 1834, has a certain irony.

"Of loved, revered and cherished memory,

"erected by his tenantry and friends".

The Countess of Sutherland has been kind enough to invite the Roadshow

to set up camp in the delightful gardens of her ancestral home.

The weather's threatening, but our clans have gathered,

so let our Highland fling commence.

It came from the attic of a retired nurse, and she discovered it in her attic, and here it is today.

Right, OK. Well, it's a typical World War II nurse's cape,

but I think... Ah, a cape with a difference - look at that!

Now, I do know something about this, because, being in the Army for five years myself and being in hospital,

this is what the lads used to do.

You see, they all fall in love with the nurses and sisters,

and say, "Have my divisional sign."

And the nurses and the sisters take them and then sew them in.

You can imagine the people they must have nursed through that period.

I mean, this is the Guards Division, with the eye.

I think I did see... Highland Division, wonderful!

And these, of course, are all the County Regiments -

Norfolk...Bucks...

Somerset Light Infantry, Durham Light Infantry.

-And the lady was a sister or nurse?

-A sister, in Normandy itself.

-Really?

-During the war, yes.

-Marvellous! It's a treasure, it really is.

Now, in auction, a cape like that would be around about £150.

-I'm judging it on other capes I've seen.

-Yes.

-But it's the old story -

if two people take a shine to it, collecting nursing memorabilia...

of course it takes off, and there would be more money.

I think it's at times like this that I realise that my first love in horology is actually watches.

So, I'm not going to spend long up here. ..Hold on, please.

What is interesting about this is presumably Halkirk is not the name of the maker but the name of a town.

A village.

And from up here,

written over many of the actual gilded numerals are the names

-of various people.

-No, never noticed that, no.

Whether they're the names of the clockwinders, or whether it is 19th-century graffiti, I don't know.

Well, I suppose I could say it's a classic Scottish clock,

and it is, to an extent, except for its height,

which is quite enormous. I don't know... I'm verging on six foot.

There must be eight or nine feet up there.

Now, it looks, to all intents and purposes, as if it's mahogany.

In fact, it's actually pine.

-Yes.

-It's pine - soft wood - and the whole clock has been painted

to look like a flame mahogany.

Over the years that's faded, and it's been kept in a dry situation

-because the joints have opened up.

-Yes.

New, the painting would've been bright and very clear, and you would not have seen any cracks or joins

No.

The movement is a straightforward timepiece.

I'm not going to take the hood off. I have visions of falling backwards.

But I'm sure the movement is Scottish.

-So would it have been made in Halkirk?

-Not the movement.

-Oh.

-But possibly the case, yes.

-It is such an extraordinary size that it would undoubtedly have been a special commission.

-Yes.

I suppose you'd say if you really wanted it and had a place for it -

-which obviously you have...

-Yes.

-..it could be worth a lot of money,

but if you lived in a small flat in London, I don't think you'd...

-You'd have to cut it in half!

-Yes.

-Difficult to value, but it's got to be insured for four figures or more.

-Has it?

-Yeah.

-Thank you very much.

I can remember this table when I was just a wee small lad, probably four or five year old,

at my grandparent's house, in Watford in Hertfordshire.

I know what it's made of but, apart from that, I don't really know what period it is or what its value is.

I'm going to test you now - what's the wood, then?

I suspect that's, er... I don't think it's burr oak,

-cos I see no medullary rays in it.

-No.

-But I suspect it's burr elm.

I didn't say that to trick you, and it's not a bad guess.

I like the way you've gone through the process with medullary rays,

and you're right, it's not oak and you can't see medullary rays.

-It's not an indigenous wood at all.

-Thuya?

-Well done!

-It is thuya wood. Do you know where it's from, the thuya wood?

-Er, West Indies, isn't it?

No, the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

And it came into this country,

or into the British Isles, into use, really, through France

and because northern Morocco was a French colony,

and first used it in about the 1840s and '50s, in regular quantity.

The whole thing has a very French look and feel - French/Italian.

Certainly not English. That's not an English piece, design and style-wise, I wouldn't have said.

I'm going to push you now. You've got your own thought process going, so why isn't it English, then?

Probably, it's English construction because of the high quality of construction - the dovetailing.

The drawer slip in here tells me it's very, very English - in terms of construction -

but the style of it is just not English.

You're doing very well on your own.

English drawer construction, lovely cord-and-beaded moulding, mahogany.

Typical of what you expect of an English drawer,

but it's not Italian, more French.

Those columnar supports is typical of what's called Louis XVI style.

That style became very popular about the 1850s onwards.

With the French political troubles, French craftsmen came to England.

French designers were sought after in England

and paid well to bring in this very sophisticated French design.

And the ormolu here is typical. "Ormolu" is an English word

-for bronze "d'or moulu".

-Yeah.

-So it's simply gilt bronze,

or brass, but we call it bronze - it sounds better.

But the colour is more typical of English metalwork. It's a good piece of furniture.

If it was in a showroom, done up, in London or a showroom where they like high-quality, Victorian furniture,

-I can see it being... £6,500...£7,000, retail price.

-Mmm.

A gift from my husband 20 years ago. He has a fetish for salerooms

and he was lucky enough to acquire this at one of the sales.

He's got a discriminating eye! This is one part, made of moulded glass,

and glass and jewellery have got a lot to do with one another -

since antiquity, people have seen glass as an attractive material. Have you thought about the colour?

-Where it comes from behind?

-No, I wondered about that.

I think it's a near-colourless glass but, behind, there's some green foil

-that's actually giving this strange luminosity to it.

-Oh, I see.

-I think you know who it's by.

-I do.

-Tell us.

-Rene Lalique.

-Rene Lalique.

He was trained as a jeweller, before moving into the world of glass,

and he's really the towering genius of the Art Nouveau movement.

The jewellery that he made broke all conventions. It had nothing to do with what had gone before -

it wasn't Neo-Classical, but Art Nouveau.

But this is a haunting example.

Have you wondered also about how it was worn?

I did, and I also wondered about how it was so beautifully ornamented, the back.

I think it's just a very clever stratagem to echo the design of the foliage that you see on the front.

The only thing missing is this sort of deer, antelope figure, really.

But when you turn it over, the pattern is shown blind at the back.

It's in three sections,

because it's what we would call a "stomacher" -

to be worn on the front of quite a stiff bodice.

I'm thrilled to see a piece of Lalique here. Never seen it before.

Very, very exciting.

I'm a devoted fan of his. A figure of £3,000 would be good today.

-Oh, no! Never!

-Absolutely.

Gosh, that's wonderful.

"My dear Uncle Isaac, we're back again in our castle home.

"Only two professional gents live in castles - me and Hall Caine. Here is a picture of me and Hall Caine."

If we turn over this wonderful green ink and curious illustrations,

more illustrations, but it's signed with the magical name Jack B Yeats,

the brother of the poet WB Yeats.

So, tell me, who is Uncle Isaac?

Uncle Isaac was their father's brother.

Their father, of course, was John Butler Yeats.

And they were obviously very fond of Uncle Isaac who, I believe, was very good to the family,

and bought their paintings and WB's books, and so on and so forth,

because, obviously, when - especially WB, I think - was pretty poor...

But Jack always made a living from his paintings.

-And what is your relationship to Uncle Isaac?

-Um, Uncle Isaac was the -

and John -

were the brothers of my husband's grandmother, Fanny Yeats.

-Right. And so that's how they've come down to you?

-Yes.

They are wonderful letters. I mean, we've got four letters here,

all beautifully illustrated with little cartoons,

-but Jack Yeats, as a painter, is absolutely top notch at the moment, isn't he?

-Absolutely.

-I mean his paintings go for...

-Yes.

-..oodles of money, don't they?

-Have you got any?

-I'm afraid not.

-Why not?

-They were lost during a house move.

I don't believe it. I think that's horrible!

But here he is again - "This is an idea for a pleasant communication".

Giving a dog a bone. They're all signed Jack B Yeats.

He's asking Uncle Isaac to send the dog a bone when he writes next.

Lovely!

I rather like this one. This is "How to avoid catching flies."

And there's the fisherman at the top there...

That's my favourite illustration.

They're tremendous! Full of news, full of family,

and gossip, and all sorts of things like that.

I think they're worth about £4,000.

-Surprise you?

-No.

-This is not the morning tea service?

-No, some are old, some modern.

-You've been collecting miniatures?

-I have 60 of them.

-60?

-I haven't brought the lot.

-Right.

-Far too many.

How long have you been collecting?

Since my teens - about 30 years.

And what drives the collection? Do you go for a pattern? Do you go for a factory?

Factory names, good English china names, so I've got Coalport...

Yeah, 1760 or thereabouts.

It's a good pattern - Chinese family by a table.

"Printado a mano, Espana" - tells you it's modern Spanish.

Somebody got that on their holidays.

And this is a plate made for the American market.

"Johnson Brothers..."

How much did you pay for this mug?

-Gosh, it was so long ago! It was Auchterarder, wasn't it? Can you remember how much?

-I think, £40.

-Some years ago?

-Yes, some years ago.

Today, if you saw those in an auction, I'd expect this to fetch in the region of £120, £180.

-Right.

-It's a good factory, it's well painted, and very unusual having that coffee can.

I'm looking at a very fine portrait of a ship,

and, from a glance, you think, "It's done in oil on canvas, or on board."

Part of it is, of course, but the rest of it is all textile.

Here we have the Napier, and it says "The Napier of Liverpool" there,

and "JBP Campbell. Commander."

-Are you a Mr Campbell?

-No. He's my great grandfather.

Very good.

We believe that this was done by the ship's cook,

a Chinese gentleman, when becalmed and, apart from the painting,

he made the bits up out of pieces of uniform. That's shirt material.

It does look very much like shirting material and this is...

either black or very dark navy, so, yes.

Yes, that's velvet, and the sails are made of linen.

And they're beautifully, beautifully embellished and embroidered

because it would be one thing just to have a crude piece of embroidery,

but this has been done with such dexterity, so it's a very good-quality ship's portrait

of a type that is unusual

because, usually, they are merely painted.

And here we've got lists of all the various members of the crew,

dated "New York, 19th September 1890".

I'd like to look at the wages, here.

-The carpenter got 60 dollars - £6. Interesting to look at the exchange rate then.

-That's a month's wages.

They were actually not badly paid.

And then it goes all the way down through the various different jobs,

down to "the boy" down here, who got £2 - £2 a month. Not so great being a "boy"!

This really brings it to life.

It's fantastic when you think they went round the world in that there.

And these are trips that you'd fear in a serious boat now, and they're just wandering round the world,

1,400 tons of manganese in the hold to be swapped for beef and pork.

-Yes.

-Amazing, the lifestyle.

And so we come to the inevitable question of value.

This is an incredibly commercially popular piece.

It's something that will never go out of the family, I'm sure,

hopefully it won't, but it's the sort of work

which, in the last two or three years, has got into a whole different price range.

Three years ago, I'd have stuck my neck out to say it was worth £1,200.

Now I think we can safely say

that's worth £5,000 to £6,000. The market has changed dramatically.

I had a great-grandfather in the south of England,

and he used to go over to the Continent - probably Holland and Belgium -

and buy paintings from the poor starving artists,

brought them back to the UK, then shipped them to America and Canada

-and sold them to our cousins over there for large amounts of money.

-Quite an enterprising character.

I'm afraid. Yes, yes, he was a Scotsman, same as myself.

Those that he liked an awful lot he kept over in Britain

and I've inherited them, through the family, from there.

Very interesting.

Well, I think these two watercolours

are by an artist called Bernardus Johannes Blommers,

one of the principal members

of the Hague School of artists working around the ports of Scheveningen and the Dutch coast,

during the mid 19th century.

-Does that tie in with when your grandfather was active?

-Yes, 1850 or so.

It's interesting what you're saying about him bringing all these artists over to Europe and further afield,

because Blommers didn't find tremendous favour at home.

His subject matter didn't appeal to the local market of Holland,

and there were a number of galleries and dealers in Scotland who were very fond of this subject matter,

and many customers for the works of Blommers.

They're just very beautiful, and a pair of drawings such as this, I think, would be quite desirable.

I would have thought that if they were being sold at auction together,

they could make £7,000 to £10,000.

-For the pair?

-For the pair.

-Goodness gracious!

It's a very popular market, and obviously the market is now at home,

whereas it wasn't 100 years ago, but it's now very much home-based.

They were my grandmother's, then her daughter's

and, when she died, my father got them and he handed them down to me.

-What d'you feel about them?

-I wouldn't part with them.

-Right.

Do you know anything about them?

-Absolutely nothing.

-You've heard of Staffordshire dogs?

-Yes.

-Here we've got Staffordshire rabbits.

-Oh, right.

These were made by an anonymous pottery in the 19th century.

They date from about 1850, 1860, and what I like about them, apart from the fact they're rabbits,

is that they follow exactly the style of the dogs.

Imagine them on their haunches - it would be a Staffordshire dog.

Originally, there would have been made a pair, and you've got two of a kind,

which doesn't matter,

but a left and a right is how they were sold.

It's a strange thing but, for some reason, the rabbit -

although made by many potteries - is very rare

and collectors are desperate to get them.

They can get dogs by the ton in every size, they can get cats...

Come rabbits, they're hard to find,

so to find two sitting on my table is really quite exceptional.

-So, you wouldn't part with them for the world?

-No.

-How much is the world?

-I don't know, but I wouldn't part with them.

-OK.

If I tell you they are worth...

-£2,000 each?

-You're joking!

-I'm not.

-An antique dealer offered us £50 for the pair.

-Well, I'm glad you didn't take it.

-No, I wouldn't.

These are astonishingly rare - I don't know why.

They're just extremely desirable.

Well, this little teapot looks

as though it's come straight out of the Arabian Nights -

what sort of adventure did you have getting it?

Well, it was quite an adventure.

It was a castle in Perthshire in the '50s, I would think,

and they were selling everything within the castle, and my eye lit on that.

And instead of that, I got THREE ornaments, all for a pound.

-All three ornaments in the same lot?

-In the same lot, for a pound.

-How far would you have gone...?

-I couldn't have gone far,

because I was fairly young and I couldn't afford any more.

-What were the other two ornaments?

-One was a scent bottle

of that same - Royal Rosenberg.

The other was a - just a sort of dish, really,

tan-coloured, with gilt round the outside edge.

-I don't know anything about it.

-OK.

But the scent bottle fell off a mantelpiece once.

Oh, dear! So this is the sole survivor?

-This is the sole survivor.

-For £1.

People ask, "What is porcelain?"

Porcelain is white and you can see light through it.

This is white and you can see light through it.

But the extraordinary thing about Rosenberg "porcelain" is, the actual clay body that this is made of

-is not technically porcelain, it's not the classic combination of china clay and china stone.

-Oh!

It is technically an earthenware.

And it's low-fired, much lower-fired than standard porcelain,

yet you can see light through it.

It is paper-thin -

it's like holding a piece of paper.

And it is incredibly delicate so I'm not surprised that your scent bottle

shattered to smithereens when it hit the deck.

Now, date of manufacture - you've found out

-what the date is?

-No, I only know that it's Royal Rosenberg.

Well, you know it's Royal Rosenberg because it has the crown,

the name Rosenberg and there's the stork biting a snake

and this is a factory in the Hague,

-in the Low Countries.

-Goodness!

There is the artist's cipher,

the "SS" cipher.

Dating it is straightforward.

This swirly design is an echo of the whole swirly design

of the vessel itself.

It's beautifully done in different colours, wonderful outlines

and then it's filled in with ever-decreasing circles of whorls.

Beautiful little long-tailed bird,

sitting in the tree,

but predominantly foliage -

-the swirls of the Art Nouveau.

-Yes.

And of course it is Art Nouveau. It has survived since around 1900.

-It is teapot-shaped. Have you ever been tempted?

-Oh, no, no, never.

-Good.

-It has pride of place.

-I think it would shatter...

-if you put a hot liquid in it.

-Yes.

Now, how much did your pound earn you?

Well, I think today a collector of Rosenberg

would probably pay you somewhere in the region of £2,000.

Would you like this little dish?

I don't have £2,000 on me but plenty of people would be interested.

It's a lovely, lovely example.

A five-shot Adams revolver.

Now, what background

-can you tell me about it?

-Um, I took these two weapons

in payment for a garage bill - I run the local garage.

And this was given in payment for an outstanding bill.

-Over 20 years ago.

-Really?

I have an interest in firearms...

and I was offered these in payment, which I was happy to take.

Well, I don't know what the bill was, but I think you've done well...

-Around £400 then.

-Really?

-Yes.

In auction, this would fetch £2,000 today.

Mm-hm?

-But this is the one I'm intrigued with.

-Yeah.

Now, isn't that nice?

So we have a gentleman's pair of pocket pistols.

Um, no doubt they're Continental, they're not English.

Ah!

-The Liege, Belgium proof-mark. So, made in Belgium.

-Yeah.

Hidden triggers -

as you cock it, so the trigger comes down.

And, when you ease it off, up goes the trigger.

Sometimes the trigger is on a return spring and it takes it up itself

but in this instance, no.

Ivory grips...

Often you find

that when ivory is in boxes like this and you turn it over,

the other side is quite yellow because ivory likes to be exposed.

-And sometimes I've had pistols where it's perfectly white one side...

-Yes.

..and absolutely yellow the other,

but this one has kept its colour quite good.

Now, what have we got here?

We've got a combination bullet mould.

The idea of the block there

is to put it into the entrance of the barrel to turn the barrel off

because when you turn the barrel off...

..you put your powder in there,

you put the ball on the top and then screw it back on.

-And the idea of that is because, once you fire the pistol, all the gases are behind the ball.

-Yeah.

In older pistols, you rammed the ball down

and then it came out again and the gases would escape.

And here we have

your little percussion explosive caps that go onto the nipples.

Yes.

Yes, it's a very nice set piece, this.

I've been describing them as muff pistols. Is that correct?

-No, muff pistols are smaller than this.

-Oh, right.

-They're gentleman's pocket pistols.

-Right.

Now, for a pair of pistols like that today,

you'd have to pay all of £2,000.

-Aye?

-Because they're nice quality.

-Good.

-Something to be desired.

-Yes.

-A good investment, then?

-I think so, yes. You've done well.

-Good.

-Thank you for bringing them today.

-Thank YOU.

Here is a most voluptuous drawing.

How did you come by it?

The drawing was in my brother-in-law's house - David Shanks Ewart, a Glasgow artist -

and he apparently got it as a gift from...

-Straight from Strang?

-..straight from Strang,

-I think, but I'm not certain.

-I see.

I think it's the most wonderful life-drawing.

It illustrates the sheer ability as a draughtsman of William Strang.

Now, there are anatomical faults about this drawing

and, in a sense, I don't care about them,

but I'll talk about them first to discount them, really,

and look at the larger picture, as it were.

First, he's miscalculated the size of the sheet and missed off the feet

so he's done them up here,

as if to show what he would have done if it was the right size.

He was more interested in getting something down quickly in line,

than thinking about the end product.

Further up her body, you can see that the hip is not quite right, it's slightly in the wrong place.

You could argue that her shoulders are just a tiny bit too narrow.

You could argue that the angle of her head, and the neck set upon those shoulders,

is not quite right.

You could argue that the left arm is lost up round underneath her head

and doesn't articulate with the rest of the body.

You could really take it to pieces.

And then again you think, "No, this is a beautiful drawing."

-Beautiful.

-Absolutely beautiful.

And the sureness of his line

as he sketches out forms and models the flesh

and as he manages to communicate to you

something of the texture of, and the volumes of, her body.

-She really lives.

-She really lives.

I think it's absolutely lovely.

Strang IS an uneven artist - we've discussed the faults here -

but I've rarely seen a more attractive drawing by him, in general terms. Absolutely delicious.

And I've no hesitation in putting at least £3,000 on it.

-(Thousand?)

-Absolutely.

Oh, golly!

I never thought that at all.

You have a professional interest in that.

-You're not a publican, are you?

-No.

-I HAD a professional interest, till recently.

-Which was?

-Dentistry.

So what IS that?

Eh, it's a forceps for extracting teeth.

Probably, almost certainly, that one for a lower left molar tooth.

The hook would go in between the root on the inside of the tooth

-and the tooth would be rotated out in that way.

-Ah.

And this is the opposite side - this would be on the right side.

Yes, what happy memories(!) And how old is this instrument of torture?

These are probably late 1800s - that's a guess, to be honest.

-So the teeth were twisted out, not pulled out?

-Rotated out, yes.

So "I pull 'em", the old joke of the comic should be "I rotate 'em"?

Yes, that would be more correct.

I know this box is a treasure of yours as well...

Well, it's obviously false teeth... but from where, and how?

Either bone or ivory, and I haven't investigated as to which it is.

When...?

It could be over several centuries,

possibly around Elizabeth I's time, or even earlier.

Male or female?

From the size of the tooth, it could well be female,

but it would depend on the shape of bone and the size of the mouth

-as to how they carved it.

-I wonder if it has any value?

-Probably just sentimental.

-Oh, yes!

Now, one of the reasons I like and am interested in

the end of the 19th century, early 20th century,

is so many ideas come together -

Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, William Morris, Modernism, they all sort of come together.

And this clock I particularly like because it represents all of that.

Do you like it?

-Not particularly! ..My husband likes it.

-That's a good start.

-So it belongs to your husband.

-Yes.

He just turned up with this clock?

-Yes.

-What did you say?

-"What did you buy that for?"

-So, where do you have it in the house?

-In a corner!

-It's actually sitting behind the television.

-BEHIND the television?

-Yes. In the corner.

I like it because, for a start, it's architecture and this was a period

when there was a very adventurous approach to domestic architecture.

We've got lots of symbols and decorations which again represent

the idea of William Morris and Arts and Crafts.

We've got flowers, we've got pretty sort of Pre-Raphaelite girls,

we've got a girl there representing day, another one representing night.

So many elements that take us into that period, so much going on.

And I like that we have something that is architectural, but made of pottery.

Do you know who made it or anything?

-Not at all.

-It's made by a company called Foley, in Staffordshire,

and they produced a range in the early 1900s, called intarsio ware.

Intarsio means nothing - it's one of those sort of made-up trade terms

that represents that period.

The designer was Frederick Reid, who worked for several companies,

and the quality of intarsio...

It's always this very exuberant, very colourful sort of Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau decoration.

Intarsio ware has become very collectable -

it's a named designer, a well-known representative of its period,

so we're looking at a clock that is going to be quite a lot of money.

-What did he pay - £200 or £300?

-About that, yeah.

-Do you think that was too much?

-Yes.

-You'd be horrified.

-Horrified, yes.

Well, it's actually worth about... Between £1,000 and £1,500...

-What does that mean?

-I'll have to start liking it!

-Good.

Your husband has immaculate taste.

Well, it's a pretty spectacular box.

Lovely. A piece of furniture, really.

Do you know what this is called?

-Handle?

-It's a coffin-mount handle

with wonderful Gothic crucifixes - it's straight out of Dracula.

-The mounts are stunning. Let's open it up, shall we?

-Yeah.

There it is, the contents.

Tell me about this.

Um, it's a violin which my mother's friend used to play with my mother in an orchestra, just for fun,

and when she died my mother was left the violin with the case.

-The lady didn't like the case - she said it looked like a coffin.

-Yes.

She used an everyday case for it.

When Mum got the violin, she was given this case, not the other one.

Well, it was mainly the case that attracted me when you brought it in,

and it is a spectacular thing - beautifully lined.

And this violin was actually made and fitted up for this case...

-It was tailor-made?

-It fits perfectly the profile.

-Ah.

You have beautiful little boxes - you keep your rosin in there,

and you probably keep a spare set of strings and then your chin pad.

The bows tuck into the top here.

So it's a very high-class box.

But, rather like a book, you know,

-the cover isn't always an indication of the quality of the contents.

-Oh, I appreciate that.

And the bow is very bad news indeed.

It's not very straight, it's nickel mounted, nothing special about it.

So let's get to the instrument.

Quite a pale varnish...

..and...

..rather a striking back. I'm going to look inside

and read out the label - there's a paper label in here.

Now, we see hundreds of violins on these Roadshows over the years

-and they always say "Stradivarius", but this one doesn't.

-No.

-It says -

excuse my French - it says, "Medaille d'or et d'argent aux expositions de 1844 & 1849."

Then it gives the name, "Bernardel, luthier, eleve de Lupot".

In other words a luthier, a violin maker, the pupil of Lupot.

And then there's an actual ink signature that says,

"Bernardel, a Paris...1853."

Well, I'm not a violin expert, that's the first thing to tell you,

but I can say this is a very well-made violin.

And something else is rather fun - if you rock this violin you'll see a little fluff ball rolling about.

They develop over the years, and it's known as a mouse.

I've got one in my cello. I would never get rid of it.

So never get rid of that little ball of hair.

Bernardel is a well-known maker, not as expensive as his master Lupot -

in fact, it's a family of makers - and I would just point out to you

that the going rate for a Bernardel fiddle

is between £10,000 and £15,000.

..You're joking!

So I think it would be in your interest to go and find...

Oh!

..to go and find a real violin expert, but I'm sure he'll tell you

it's a perfectly genuine piece, made...to fit in this beautiful box.

And it's a shame you don't play it.

-Perhaps somebody in the family will be tempted.

-My daughter's learning.

-Well, she's got a lovely fiddle to grow into.

-Heavens!

I'm gobsmacked!

-You should insure it for £25,000.

-Ooh!

-Gee!

-Shall we cover it up?

-Yes, please.

Oh!

MUSIC BOX TINKLES

So, did you play with her when you were a child?

We did, yes. We used to go through to see our aunt in Glasgow,

and always wanted to see the doll, and see her working.

-And we ran through to the room where she was kept, and watched her smelling the flowers.

-Wonderful!

Your aunt, did she tell you anything about this?

-Well, we don't know an awful lot about her, but...

-No, we don't know very much about her history at all,

except that my father's brother

took her home from France

after the end of the First World War,

and he gave her to his younger sister.

-Your aunt.

-Yes.

-Our aunt, yes.

-How lovely!

She has a very special head, by the firm of Jumeau, in Paris,

and I didn't really have to look at the back of the head,

because I could recognise the look of this Jumeau face.

But under this lovely mohair wig, she's got a mark which says...

.."Tete Jumeau, BTE SGDG",

which stands for sans garantie de gouvernement - without guarantee of the government.

So it's before they get to the register,

so that tells me immediately that she is a serious automaton.

These heads were made for the firm of Leopold Lambert.

Now, Leopold Lambert actually was working in Switzerland,

it has a Swiss movement,

and her movement's very good, considering she goes back to about 1890.

And they then dressed her, in Paris, in this wonderful silk-and-satin dress,

and these buttons, to me, are just exquisite, aren't they?

These little satin buttons at the end, just that little finish is so typically French.

She is so pleasing to the eye, she is so pretty,

that the automata collectors would pay probably as much as £4,000 at auction for her.

A blustery day, but full of bright and beautiful things.

If you'd like to see those things again, they're on our website.

From the Scottish Highlands, goodbye.