Hampton Court 1 Antiques Roadshow

Welcome to a king's playground.

In these parks, an English monarch practised archery

with the dark-haired beauty who had captured his heart.

He called her his "own darling".

And while they played Cupid, the queen was in the palace wondering what her fate would be.

The king was Henry VIII, his darling, Anne Boleyn...

and the palace... Hampton Court.

During Henry's reign these walls had witnessed the arrivals, and mostly the departures, of six queens.

When he took up residence with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon,

he was already making way for Anne Boleyn and had started building rooms for her at the palace.

But Anne Boleyn did not live to see the rooms completed.

For palace staff, the arrival of a new queen meant swift makeovers.

Anne's insignia had to be replaced by Jane Seymour's.

The royal beasts had to be altered too and Anne's leopard converted to Jane's panther...

perhaps by a diplomatic removal of spots.

Jane gave birth to Henry's son Edward at the palace and he was christened in the Chapel Royal.

Sadly his mother died ten days later and at Henry's request her internal organs were buried under the altar.

Unsuited to being a widower, he then married Anne of Cleves...

a swift annulment followed.

And when Catherine Howard, his fifth queen, made her first public appearance

it was here at the Chapel Royal.

Only 15 months later Catherine Howard was under house arrest

awaiting execution on a charge of adultery.

She made one final attempt to plead for Henry's mercy -

she ran along this corridor to the chapel where she believed him to be,

but she was intercepted and dragged back to her room.

A ghost is said to shriek along the corridor at night.

This enormous kitchen catered to the last great reception hosted by Henry at the palace

with his sixth wife, Catherine Parr.

In poor health, the king left most of the entertaining...

and throwing of chicken legs... to his young son.

All that in the life of just one of the monarchs who called Hampton Court home.

And so to the Privy Gardens for another great reception hosted by the Antiques Roadshow.

Well, this is absolutely incredible.

I've never seen anything like it, well, not quite like it anyway.

-But these are cut out pieces of paper and they're actually using little bits of...

-Bits of a plant.

-..Bits of a plant there, but all these... This is all paper.

-Yes.

And this is actually... If you look at the paper,

it is, in fact, sort of, Chinese paper.

-Uh-huh.

-It's Chinese sort of pith paper, what they call pith paper. So where did you get this from?

It was given to me as a birthday present,

and it was, I suspect, given to me because I'm actually a biologist.

-Right.

-And although I read zoology, I did two years of botany,

and so I was fascinated by this.

I can't wait to look at the rest. I mean, they just are too exciting.

Look at that.

-Is that laburnum?

-I think it's laburnum.

Laburnum, it's just incredible. The way they've just absolutely...

-She had an eye for spreading things out.

-You think it was a "she", do you?

-I think so.

We've seen some examples of this sort of work in the British Museum

by Mrs Delany,

and so we wondered whether they might be by her.

Well, it's not Mrs Delany because it's not Mrs Delany's period.

Mrs Delany was at the great, sort of, Kew Garden period.

-Oh, yes.

-She was a great friend of George III and used to go and stay with Queen Charlotte.

How she had time to do 1,000 cut-out flowers I just have no idea.

But this person is in the tradition of Mrs Delany,

but I reckon about 80 years later. This is about 1850.

You're going to have to be jolly careful with this, you know,

because as you can see, little bits are cracking here.

It is a concern owning this sort of thing - the conservation issue.

Yes. I would say something else also, the paper I suspect is not particularly stable.

Is there anything we could or should do?

I think at this stage absolutely nothing at all. Look at that.

-Oh, just look at that - variegated holly.

-Yes.

Gosh, I can't stop mine... it grows all over the place,

but here it is recreated in paper with the little berries.

-I mean, they're almost real berries really, but it just brings it out, doesn't it?

-Yes.

-This is my favourite, yes.

-This is your favourite.

And it is absolutely stunning.

-Artistically it's so beautifully arranged, isn't it?

-Yes.

-It really is superb.

-And the colours are still so fresh.

-Well, that is the advantage of keeping it in this album, obviously.

-You couldn't take those out and put them on the wall...

-No.

..because they would undoubtedly fade.

But you see the binding, looking at the binding, that is very typically mid-19th century.

A lovely clasp there, so, I mean, it...just everything about it is just too exciting.

And you've got what, over 30 of these in there?

-Yes.

-Yes, over 30.

-Well, may I value it?

-Ooh, yes, please.

I have to say that I think that this would retail for somewhere between £15,000 and £20,000.

Oh, my!

-That's quite a present.

-You jolly be careful you're not mugged on the way out.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Thank you very much.

-My great pleasure. It's lovely.

-Wonderful.

Do you know anything about him?

Only that he was the, er, mineral manager of the Midland Railway, erm,

but he didn't go down the pits.

Oh. The fascinating thing about these portraits is that they look like coloured-over photographs,

-but they're portraits on porcelain...

-On porcelain, yes.

-..which is extraordinary.

-Yes.

-Ellis Roberts, the painter -

this one is signed just faintly there, but this one is quite clear, 1886.

-Yes, yes.

-He was a very well-known Victorian artist.

-Was he?

-He was trained in the ceramics world, trained at Wedgwood and Minton.

-Yes.

-But then went on to do oils, particularly portraits.

He was a great specialist Victorian portraitist.

They could have been done from photographs because they used to have very strict photographs -

-you stood very still and had it, and then somebody painted them over.

-Yes.

But in this case, perhaps they were sent to Roberts and he...

They could have sat for him, of course. Do you think they did?

-They were friends of his.

-Ah.

-Apparently.

They're fascinating, especially by a well-known Victorian portraitist

on porcelain.

I find them quite riveting to look at. I mean, the faces - the expressions are so wonderful.

She looks just like my old grandmother.

-I could have thought she could have been her.

-I like the glasses.

Wonderful, aren't they? They're looking...

But they're worth, I should imagine, quite a considerable sum.

-To you, of course, priceless.

-Yes, yes.

-But if they came up on the open auction market,

because of Ellis Roberts' well-known skills as a portraitist,

they would be very interesting.

I suppose one must be looking at, I don't know, about £3,000 or £4,000 as a value, so look after them.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

How lovely it is to see such a gorgeous clock

in front of a piece of architecture of virtually the same period.

-Is it something you've had in the family for generations?

-Yes.

I've had it for about 30 years, but we know it must have been in the family for at least 100,

and possibly even 200.

My grandmother had it in her house - as a child I always admired it and it was always designated for me

because I was the one that loved the clock.

And actually in there is a small label which says that that is to come to me in due course,

-and I kept it inside as a memento.

-That's lovely.

As a child did you ever try and get inside and play with it, or not?

Er, no, those sort of things were forbidden.

-It is in use?

-Oh, yes, it's in use every day, I wind it about...

-Every week.

-Every week, yes, but we don't wind the bell.

You don't have the striking going?

-No, because it's too noisy.

-Too noisy?!

-It wakes us up at night.

What can I say? Listen, um...

that is a fabulous ten-inch dial, the mark of an early clock, in fact.

We've got a very slender seconds dial here,

lovely cherub spandrels, a superb matted centre and very, very attractive hands.

-It's a beautiful dial.

-Original hands.

-Original hands, BUT it looks as if the silvering has gone.

-Have you been polishing at that a bit, or not?

-No.

-We only got married about 12 years, 13 years ago.

-13 years.

And it was the same as when we, when I came into the scene.

I like to see that, so if you have a look your side and I'll have a look mine,

-we've got a lovely movement there with six ring pillars, all of which are latched.

-Yes.

So you can just unclip them and take the whole thing apart and the dial is also latched,

the dial feet are all latched to that front plate. It's a cracking good movement.

Now, what sort of date do you reckon?

Well, I always thought it was about 1720, 1730,

but that's slightly guessing and I've got nobody to corroborate that.

-Well, I think we could call it just prior to 1685.

-Oh, my goodness!

-Oh, it's a good thing, a very good thing.

-Oh, my goodness.

And look at this case, look at this fantastic panel marquetry.

I'm not quite convinced about the mother-of-pearl that's been set into that little butterfly,

but the rest of it is superb.

Sadly there has been a little bit of damage and restoration to the plinth...

and you've got cracking here, but that's not the end of the world.

-And this section here, all this moulding is not original, these feet are not original.

-Oh, oh.

It would almost certainly have sat on small bun feet.

-Oh, that's interesting.

-But I think it's an absolutely cracking good piece.

Would it have had any sort of spandrel-type things on the top originally?

It might have had some cresting but it doesn't matter,

the thing that has been lost are the barley twist columns which would have come down each side.

-There's been some alteration to the hood, the mouldings are not original.

-Yes.

But again that's not the end of the world - the basic thing is in superb condition.

The movement is lovely. Not signed so I can't pin it down to any specific maker.

-So what about insurance? Have you got it covered?

-Yes, we've always had it insured.

It used to be about 3,000, I think it's probably gone up to 5,000 now.

Gosh, well, let's take that £3,000.

If you put a nought on the end of that I'd say £30,000...

-but when this is up and running, it's even going to be more than that, so...

-My goodness.

-The family will be very overpowered.

-Very envious.

I'm sure the family will be delighted - it's a super clock.

This has to be one of the ugliest chairs ever seen on the Antiques Roadshow.

The only merit I think it has, when I first looked at it,

was the inlay on the back plate here with this...

what looks like an alpine goat or whatever and then again here on the seat,

obviously the pair of stag and deer.

But you shouldn't be put off by first appearances because it is special.

What's the history behind it?

We don't know any of the history. All we know is that my great grandfather bought it from a shop,

and they used to live in Hove and we think he bought it in the late '40s,

but apart from that we don't know anything about it at all.

OK, maybe I can enlighten you a bit.

I mean, this is a bit of a give-away - alpine scene.

It's a Swiss chair and would have been made round about 1880, that sort of period,

and it would have been probably something that would have sat in the hall.

It wouldn't be very comfortable so the sort of thing you would have admired, very Victorian,

and maybe left your coat on.

Um, but it has a bit of a secret about it, doesn't it?

Yes, it's actually a musical chair and it still works.

PLAYS TINKLY MUSIC

So to amuse your guests you'd have had them sitting down there on the chair,

and suddenly you'd have pulled the button and they'd have said "Where's that music coming?"

Not only one musical box, but this is in stereo.

I've never seen one, I have to say, in all 25 years of the show I have never ever seen one just like this.

-Normally the musical movements are about three inches long.

-Right.

-Er, this is a full size musical movement and two of them, so extraordinarily unusual.

-OK.

It's in good working order, a rare piece - probably somewhere in the region of about £2,500.

Excellent, thank you.

I must say there are lots of women and men...

who'd liked to have got their hands on Freddie Mercury and I'm the lucky girl,

because here we've got a great piece of...well, it's almost, sort of, homo-eroticism,

this wonderful torso of Freddie Mercury made of ceramic,

striking one of his famous poses. Now, are you a fan?

-Oh, indeed, yes.

-And so where did you see this piece?

I saw it in a bric-a-brac shop in Shepperton about 1992, I think.

-So a couple of years after Freddie Mercury died, yes.

-Yes.

I've worked with rock'n'roll memorabilia for a long time,

and I've seen a lot of different sorts of ceramic pieces,

but actually I've never seen a Freddie Mercury one.

Queen as a band have that very special quality, this sort of longevity.

Not all bands have it, but I think that Freddie Mercury and Queen do have it,

and I think that that bodes well for something like this in the future.

It's a wonderful sort of piece of 1990s.

The pose that he's striking and who it is, and the way that it's done,

-just in black and white, I think it's very sexy. How much did you pay for it?

-I paid £5 for it.

Oh, today I would...

you're not going to be able to sort of go on a sort of world cruise on the proceeds,

but I would have thought we'd be talking about perhaps £100, £150.

It's certainly gone up in value, and I think it's got a good chance of keeping that momentum going,

-simply because of the status of the band itself.

-Yes.

It can't be often on the Roadshow that you stand by a portrait

and then talk to the person painted.

-When was this done?

-1976.

-What were the circumstances?

-I was a nursing sister in a hospital in London,

and, um some of the patients on the ward put my name forward for Nurse of the Year competition.

-The Nurse of the Year competition?

-One of the patients was a very good friend of Miss Zinkeisen,

and I was asked whether she could do my portrait, and I said yes, I'd like to have it done.

So what was it like sitting to the great Anna Zinkeisen,

who together with her sister Doris were very formidable figures in the 20th-century art scene?

She was very, very easy to sit for.

She chatted while painting, and in fact I forgot I was being painted at the time,

because she was such a wonderful, exuberant sort of person.

If we work out when Anna Zinkeisen died and when this appointment was,

it pretty well happened at the same time, didn't it?

Yes, it was two weeks when she completed my portrait

that she died, unfortunately. Really sad.

Really? You've got a photograph, I gather, of the sitting,

-and actually it makes a very good comparison between the portrait and you.

-Yeah.

I think she's captured the essence superbly,

-and she's - dare I say it - slightly attenuated it, slightly pulled you up.

-Yes, she has.

I love the way she's expressed your hands in that cupping expression.

It pervades a feeling of humility, service, conscientiousness,

all sorts of other things you don't normally find in portraits.

-Yes.

-Because it must be very difficult for any portrait painter,

even someone like Anna, who was a nurse, to work out a way of describing great achievement

in an area where portrait painting hasn't traditionally performed.

There are other ways. The way you're looking out of the portrait, you've got a friendly face.

So often in formal portraiture where people have performed things and achieved things,

there's an aloofness, but there is a lovely, sweet feeling of connection, I think,

that she's got between you and, no doubt, the patients, but also the person looking at the portrait.

But I love these little touches which, again, are adaptions of historical portraits.

Instead of having an Order of the Bath or, if you're Elizabeth I, a great chunk of jewellery,

-you've got...

-My pens.

-Yeah, two biros. Nice touch.

I would like to see this work as much on your walls as on a museum wall,

and although it would be difficult to value,

-I would see an insurance valuation of £5,000, £6,000, £7,000 as quite appropriate.

-Would you?

Gosh! That's very interesting.

Now, we have two mystery items here.

What looks like a piece of sculptured driftwood

and a bit of possibly lead piping. Can you help?

This is a piece of wood which is purported to come

from Wolsey's old water system, which came from Coombe Hill up at Kingston.

Down the Thames and underneath the Thames to Hampton Court Palace,

where Wolsey wanted a source of fresh water.

-And this was just a slice of that.

-It is.

-It was given to my husband

and unfortunately I no longer knew who gave it to him,

but they knew he was doing research on the palace.

It's been in my possession ever since.

Where does this come into the equation?

This is a more modern system, still probably from Coombe Hill,

and that would have been used to join the pipes.

Eventually, the wooden pipes were replaced.

-So this comes from the time of Cardinal Wolsey?

-It does.

-Remind us of the date.

-Wolsey actually was building the palace

about 1515, and I don't know how it came to light. It's a mystery to me.

I wonder how long it took to call out a plumber in Wolsey's time.

-This is a nice collection of sweetheart badges.

-Your own collection?

Oh, yes, I've gathered them from all over the place.

This one was my uncle's in the New Zealand Cavalry.

-Right.

-And these Canadian...

the numbered ones were from my great-uncle from the First World War.

Of course, they're called sweetheart badges,

I mean, they were bought for Mum, sisters, wives, daughters.

-And they were sent home because brother or husband was in the forces.

-That's right, yes.

And in those days, ladies used to wear these big shawls

and they were always fastened with something, a coin brooch or something like that.

So, these so-called sweetheart badges, they filled the bill quite well.

You've got the Royal Naval Air Service here, Machine Gun Corps.

You can usually pick these up from various militaria dealers, something between £10, £15 and £20 each.

You might've bought some of these a long time ago and picked them up for a £1 each.

-Nothing.

-Well, time marches on.

-It does indeed, yeah.

-And seeing as they are...

There's now a book published on sweetheart badges, the interest is...is growing very, very much.

-I'll have to look after those, won't I? Thank you.

-Thank you for bringing it.

-Thank you very much.

I can remember when my father gave it to me at Christmas in 1938.

-How little a lad were you?

-Four going on five.

Let me have a look at it. And you've got the original box there.

-That's right.

-And you've got the key?

-Yes.

-Can I give it a go?

-You can.

Well, this is made by a well-known German manufacturer,

a company called Schuco which is short for Schreyer and Company.

The full title of the factory was Schreyer and Company,

-but they shortened it to Schuco which was much easier for people to pronounce.

-Right.

And it's a lovely car with this great mechanism here,

-because it's got a working gear, hasn't it?

-It has.

So you can put it into first, second, third, fourth AND reverse.

-Does it go?

-It does.

-Shall I send it to you?

-Right.

-What are we in? Are we in first?

-We're in first. Just release the brake.

-OK, handbrake off...

Ooh!

Very good. That is a wonderful toy.

In 1938, just before the war, it must've been a wonderful toy to have been given,

and today it would be worth between about £300 and £350.

So, it is a real treasure in every sense of the word.

-Have fun playing with it.

-Thank you very much, thank you.

How did you come to own a Rodin?

My grandmother gave it to me as a wedding present about 35 years ago.

-And how did she get it?

-She was the widow of Newbury Abbot Trent, who was a sculptor.

-Right.

And he, as a young boy, had been seen by Thomas Armstrong

sketching in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Thomas Armstrong was the director, took my grandfather under his wing - he became a sort of surrogate son -

-so when he died, an awful lot of Thomas Armstrong's things eventually ended up with my grandfather.

-Right.

Armstrong was an interesting man. He'd been director of what was then called the South Kensington Museum,

but, in fact, was what everybody now knows as the Victoria and Albert Museum,

and prior to that, he was an artist and had studied in Paris. And I suppose one has to assume

that he had met Rodin,

or had certainly come into his circle at some point.

Whether it was a gift, or whether he paid for it or... I don't know.

What's particularly beautiful about this is that it's... It appears to be, in a sense a maquette -

it's a sort of sketch rather than a grand finished work.

And if we can assume that it's... Camille Claudel,

who was his mistress and also a fellow sculptress,

she had met Rodin in the early 1880s. It was an absolutely disastrous affair in the end...

He wanted to break it up, she got pregnant, he wasn't having any of it and didn't marry her

and it all ended in tears, very sadly.

Rodin had sort of developed a much more loose sculptural style than had been hitherto acceptable

in the salons of Paris, so there was this very new style of sculpture

which Rodin developed.

And here, this is even sketchier than one would expect, but it's all there, isn't it?

I think so, yes.

There's something very intimate about it which makes one feel that it probably is Camille,

because, you know, he's connected very much with the sitter in this particular case, I think.

He's signed it on the bottom here and the big question is, how much is a piece like this worth?

Rodin is really probably THE greatest of 19th century French sculptors.

It's a great romance, it's a wonderful story the two of them.

Not a very happy story, but a wonderful story, none the less.

Lovely provenance from your point of view - it's connected right back to the artist

which, of course, you know, is...is a great thing.

I would imagine at auction you could expect it to be worth in excess of £15,000.

Possibly as much as £20,000, so it's a very beautiful thing.

-Oh, that's fantastic news, thank you very much indeed.

-Thank you.

It was left to me by a very dear friend.

I actually used to work for her.

And her husband was a buyer at one time in Harrods.

-A jewellery buyer?

-Yes. For Harrods.

-Yeah, yeah.

And when she died, he gave it to me.

Was it something that was worn on a regular basis?

Yes, she used to wear it nearly every day on her suit lapel.

That's a lovely story and I'll tell you something, it is in absolutely exquisite condition.

There's not a chip out of that enamel anywhere. What sort of date do you think it is?

I have no idea actually. I've got to be quite honest, I don't know.

Well, these flowers, the petals, leaves, the enamel,

-it's very, very, sort of, Art Nouveau in style, isn't it?

-Oh.

And just looking at the general size and shape of the piece,

-I'm quite happy to say it's about 1905 to 1910.

-Oh, thank you.

So just, sort of, nudging 100 years old.

And some of the lower-grade Boulle watches have a normal stem winder like you get on a wrist watch,

but this, as you probably know, is wound by the rotating of the bezel,

and then just around here, if I can find it, there should be a very small...there it is -

a thumb piece. You put your thumb in there, move the bezel and that will turn the hands.

So it does everything it should do. But...

there's just one thing I'm not entirely happy with...

-The little rose diamonds...

-Yes.

around the bezel of this watch, just don't have quite the same style and class -

if I can use that word - of these brilliant-cut ones. Do you see how that just...?

-Right, yes.

-It's just a little bit nicer than the watch itself.

Now, let me just see if I can open it up with my little thumbnail,

-there we go, look at that.

-Ah.

Do you see that little movement in there?

Yes, that's working fine.

-Absolutely typically Swiss.

-Yes.

-Minute with that tiny platform.

-It is tiny.

-Which is, I mean, look, it's, it's half the size of my little fingernail.

-Yes.

It is an exquisite thing, wonderful quality.

I'm not sure

-the pendant actually went en-suite with the watch when new.

-Oh!

-But the colours are so good, that it doesn't really matter.

-No, it blends quite well, doesn't it?

It blends extremely well because this is an unusual quality of enamel and it's an unusual colour.

You've got the dark reds and these lovely, sort of, almost corally petals.

-Right, well you're never going to replace it, because you'll never need to.

-No.

But if you went to look for one...

-Yes.

-I think that's going to cost you an absolute minimum of £6,000 to £7,000.

Oh, goodness! Oh, goodness me! Thank you, that's wonderful.

-Next time somebody takes you out for a lovely dinner, pop it on.

-Yes, right I'll tell him.

-You tell him!

You may not be aware, but every recording of the Roadshow is done under the watchful eye of the law -

not just to keep an eye on the experts,

but to give advice about looking after precious items. And in London, the Metropolitan Police

has a special unit devoted to crime involving art and antiques. Vernon Rapley is on the team.

Bernard, I mean short of... moving to Fort Knox or something,

how can we look after our precious items? Being burgled is horrible.

Well, what we're really interested in is things of a greater sentimental value than a monetary value

with art and antiques, and things that you want back,

rather than in insurance pay-out.

The majority of burglaries are still committed by people who don't know the commodity that they're stealing,

and as such, they have to pass it on quickly. It passes through three or four hands within a week.

And it's that first week that we have the best opportunity to recover your object.

So, should we take lots of photographs of our object?

Well, with photographs, remember not just to make the object look pleasing.

Take overall pictures of the object from all sides, but also photograph all the defects, cracks and splits

of that object, all the things that make it uniquely identifiable, for example with this box,

we'd be interested in the dents on the top, the marks here and the cracks in the rear,

as well as the actual wood grain itself.

All these identifying features make that object recoverable for us.

There may be 300 of these boxes, but only ONE will have that exact wood grain pattern,

and only one will have that dent there, and that means that we can actually check that object

on our database, and try and recover that particular object for you.

Is there a website people can go to if they get robbed?

We've got crime prevention advice on our website,

which is www.met.police.uk

and on there, there's pages for crime prevention and pages for art.

We also display some of the objects that have been stolen

for people to see how objects can be photographed and things like that.

I think our own website will help with details of that as well.

What about using a marker pen?

People often just put a mark somewhere,

think that will do the trick.

Sometimes it can be a good idea, but think about the safety of the object you're marking.

If in doubt, don't use a marker pen. There are a lot of other ways of marking property more safely,

and you should always get advice from an expert if you're unsure.

I mean, some of the newer ways maybe are using microdots or DNA coding on your object.

DNA? What you mean, the touch of human flesh?

It's synthetically created now, I believe, and it's a very small invisible mark

that is put on your objects, uniquely identifying them as your property. It's similar to a postcode marking,

but it's just a more sophisticated, smaller and safer method for using on art and antiques.

-I wish I'd known this when the two bronze dogs were nicked from my garden.

-I'm sorry.

-Hopefully, they're on our database and we'll get them back.

-Thank you.

When I first saw this from the cover,

I thought "Oh, my goodness this is going to be a disaster."

But in fact it isn't - the cover is the only thing that needs attention.

This is a Thames tunnel and how appropriate to have this as we're on the banks of the Thames.

When it stretches out, the inside is as fresh as a daisy.

It looks absolutely wonderful.

It's one of these things that you look through,

a peep scope here, and you look through the tunnel itself.

They're all as bright as they could possibly be, even the gas lamps are absolutely fantastic.

-Do you know which tunnel it is?

-I've been told it's the Rotherhithe.

-They seem to be having an absolute jolly in there, don't they?

-They do.

-Can I have a look through?

-You can. The holes are very uneven, aren't they? The way they...

-Well, somebody's been poking their fingers through it.

-Oh, is that why?

It looks fantastic in there. They're having a wonderful time,

and I can see two Chinamen dressed in sort of Mandarin's robes.

I can see a band, a soldier. All the colours are as bright as they could possibly be.

-What about value? Any idea?

-I have no idea.

My mother had a valuation done at some stage, I don't know when. I've had it about ten years.

-The valuation then was about £60 to £70 because the cover was so tatty.

-So tatty...

Well, a lot can be done to alleviate that cover.

You need a proper professional paper restorer to do it,

-but these things are very desirable. Even in the condition it's in now, I think a good £500.

-Really?

We're in front of a royal palace and you've brought along a jug

with a royal coat of arms...

-Now, have you ever looked at this royal coat of arms properly?

-Not at all.

You'll see it has what is perhaps the royal standard normally -

the lions in the two corners for England -

but this is the crown of the King of Hanover.

-Oh, really?

-And until 1837, the kings of England were kings of Hanover,

-which you'll remember...

-Yeah.

But when Queen Victoria inherited,

she couldn't become King of Hanover, so the two crowns got separated.

-So, THIS is the arms of the King of England, who was King of Hanover, and that was William IV.

-Oh, right.

So, that gives you a nice date. We know this jug was made before 1837.

How long have you had the jug?

I bought that about 24 years ago at an antiques shop.

I paid about £70 for it, I think. It was on sale for 90.

I think I only had £70 on me so luckily enough, I had somebody

slightly better looking than me

and I sent them in and they managed to knock it down.

It's tempting to wonder whether this kind of thing was actually made

for use in the palaces like this. It'd be lovely if it was.

It's 170 years old.

-And you paid £70?

-I paid £70 for it

and they told me it was called a Suffolk jug,

and apparently they used to drink beer or cider out of it.

It was definitely for that purpose. What it has to do with Suffolk, I don't know. It comes from London.

-Oh, right.

-I'm as sure as I can be.

-I think your £70 today has probably turned into £700...

-Oh, right.

-..So it's not too bad.

Not a bad return.

I see very few of these on the Roadshow.

They are rarities, and to have one this size,

in reasonably good condition, has been a real treat.

-So, I presume it's yours, from your family?

-It's from my wife's family.

-Oh, it's from your family?

-Yes, from mine.

-What's the story, then?

Well, my grandparents bought it as a present for a nephew whose parents had died in the war

and then decided that he'd prefer a gun, and so the boat passed to my mother

-and then to me and my sister.

-How bizarre!

So, from that point then, it's been where?

Um, pretty much up in attics.

We weren't really allowed to play with it a lot.

-We probably had it in the bath once or twice.

-Right.

-It's had a trip round a local pond.

-Oh, what was this?

We took it down to the local boating pond and wound up and away it went.

-And you got it back again?

-Yes, no water in it, beautifully dry.

So, it's a clockwork tin-plate boat. Inside is the clockwork...

And here is a lovely formidable key,

suitable for a clockwork mechanism of that scope,

-and on the top here...can you see that trademark there?

-Yes.

-Yes.

Which says GBN...and the way that that trademark is written...

indicates that it was made between about...

1906 and 1912,

one can date it really quite accurately.

It was made by a company called Gebruder Bing of Nuremberg, and that's what the GBN means -

Gebruder Bing of Nuremberg - and that company started making toys in the 1880s,

but actually in the run-up to the First World War,

-they were the biggest makers in the world of toy boats.

-Really?

-Gosh!

And in that pre-First World War period, they had 5,000 people working in their factory,

I mean an extraordinary number.

If you can imagine the build-up of the German and the British navies up to the First World War...

they produced battleships called Dreadnoughts.

And this is a Dreadnought style of battleship with this pointed prow here.

The other thing which is very nice, and very indicative of these early Bing boats,

is this raised decoration around the bow,

it's got a lovely sort of swirling design which is raised,

and that's, that's another sign of quality.

And they were very clever, the Bing company, because they produced the boats to be used anywhere really...

They called this "The Terror", obviously for the British market,

but they also made boats which they called "The Deutschland", which could be sold at home.

Gosh, it's a lovely thing.

I'm very tempted to take it home and put it in my own bath,

but I'll try and resist the temptation...

What about value?

They are... They are rare.

The fact that they were heavy in the water,

I think loads of them sunk, which is why you don't see many of them today.

So, something like this...?

Well, we're talking about a minimum of £1,500.

-Gosh.

-And perhaps going up to £2,500.

-Really?

It's a great...

It's a great piece of kit, but also it's a wonderful story.

It's a wonderful story

to think that children whose parents were lost in the war

were still given toys relating to war and killing each other... Bizarre.

A group of choice small objects... Tell me something about them.

Well, my late mother studied art and became a portrait sculptor.

She was German and her...

first years were in the artistic circle in Hanover.

She met, amongst others, and became friendly with Kurt Schwitters

and she also went to study in Paris

and a friend of hers was the girlfriend of Mondrian, Piet Mondrian.

-What date was that?

-That was in the 1920s.

-Was 1920s, yes.

Piet very kindly presented my mother with that particular picture,

which really was well before he became famous.

Well, these little collages here, um... we've got here by Kurt Schwitters.

We can see the date here of 1927, and that again signed,

-and then inscribed to your mother with the date 1928.

-That's right.

And signed on this original mount...

It's important these are... These collages.

And of course he was really influenced by, first Dada -

the crazy art - and then by cubism

and eventually, he came, as you probably know, to the Lake District

and settled there. Quite often you find quite a lot of Kurt Schwitters paintings in this country,

albeit of a rather more conventional landscape format.

Now, I suppose this, in a way, is the prize of the group -

a sheet of paper from a sketchbook,

-and as you say, given by Mondrian...

-Mondrian to my mother.

Yes, well this extraordinary starburst chrysanthemum head

is interesting even on a sketch that it actually should be signed,

and I wonder whether he did that particularly for...for your mother.

And, of course, he is one of THE most important abstract artists

and it is, I think, remarkable

for the very fact that he did have a conventional landscape style,

developed into this extraordinary rigid geometrical grid.

I don't think I can think of any artist

who has actually had that extraordinary transformation...

almost unrecognisable, but at the same time recognisable because you can see it coming in his work

through his life.

Now, I'd love to talk about this foal...this jumping foal... This little bronze.

The artist who produced this was professor of fine art in Germany

-and she specialised in animals.

-Yes.

And I'm absolutely fascinated by the...the energy and the movement in that.

-Yes.

-There's grace in it.

-And what was the connection with...?

-Well, again, my mother knew these people.

-Yes.

And her name was Rene Sintenis.

Yes, and they were good friends?

How close they were, I can't tell. I know it was a very friendly circle.

We love it, we have it on the mantelpiece.

Yes, well it's absolutely charming.

Well, I suppose we must obviously consider the values.

Now, I think the bronze probably is worth about £15,000.

-Good Lord!

-Good God!

The Kurt Schwitters, with this lovely dedication to your mother and so on,

wonderful provenance, probably we ought to say £6,000 to £8,000,

and £3,000 to £5,000 on this.

And then we come to this extraordinary drawing and I think

it's quite difficult to be accurate about what it would be worth,

-but possibly £50,000 to £70,000.

-Oh, no!

-Good heavens!

So, difficult to be absolute, but it is from all the pleasure of you owning them,

and the wonderful story behind it, the value.

It's also quite a responsibility as well.

Did you have any idea of what it might be worth?

I had no idea, except that I thought there would be value in it.

-Quite a remarkable find for us.

-I'm quite stunned as to the values.

It's not surprising in such a grand setting that we've come across

some rather important items today.

Working on the theory that there's more where that came from,

we decided to come back to Hampton Court Palace.

Not only that, it'll give us a chance to give William III's privy garden

a thorough once-over. So, let's hope the weather keeps fine.

Until then, goodbye.

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