Wentworth Woodhouse 1 Antiques Roadshow

If I were to tell you that we were at a country house with

the greatest facade in Europe, what would you think?

Versailles? Or, closer to home, Chatsworth? Blenheim?

Well, equally impressive in terms of history,

but tucked away in a quiet corner of Yorkshire,

the answer is Wentworth Woodhouse, spectacular, but relatively unknown.

Welcome to the Antiques Roadshow from Rotherham.

The monumental east side of Wentworth Woodhouse was

added in the 1700s by Thomas Watson,

one of the wealthiest landowners in the country.

He wanted to outdo nearby relatives and impress political bigwigs.

Everything about it is just staggering.

At 615 feet long,

you have to step back some distance just to be able to take it all in.

# Gloria, Gloria! #

It is said to have 365 rooms, one for every day of the year.

The actual amount is a bit lower,

but no-one can agree on the exact number.

There were rooms for everything.

There was one for preparing candles, there was one for the family barber.

In more recent years, there was one just for storing light bulbs.

The whole place is so gargantuan that in Victorian years,

guests were given baskets of confetti to lay

a trail from their bedroom to dinner.

Just so they could find their way back again.

And if they did get lost wandering along the five miles

of corridors and tunnels, they might have found themselves

wandering through splendid spaces like the pillared hall.

Or the Whistlejacket room, named after the most expensive

and, to my mind, the most beautiful painting of a racehorse.

Unfortunately, this is just a copy.

The original is in the National Gallery.

They might even have stumbled into the very heart

of Wentworth Woodhouse.

The grandest room of all,

the marble saloon.

In the 1760s, this was called the finest room in England.

And at 60 foot across and 40 foot high,

it certainly has the Wentworth wow factor.

It remained the family home for nearly 200 years,

during which time it was inherited by the Fitzwilliams.

But by 1948, burdened with financial problems,

they had to sell the contents and lease out the house.

But we will tell that story on our next visit.

Now it's time, on this is rare open day,

to welcome our visitors to Wentworth Woodhouse.

All eager to see our experts and this colossus of a stately home.

And if you would like more information about the programme

or further details about some of the items featured in this episode,

please log onto our website.

Well, there is nothing like taking a nice

cup of tea on the lawn of a very great English house.

And you have brought your own tea service. Tell me about it. Right.

What we know about it

is that Grandma and Grandad bought it in the late 1950s

from a private house sale

where they were selling quite a number of antiques.

And, basically, it has been in the family ever since.

Bought in the 1950s. Yes.

And then somebody in the family

wrote to a well-known auction house in 1966 and received this letter.

I will just quote the middle bit.

"We feel that it might be better for you to keep it for a few years

and see then to what extent the market has improved."

That's right.

That's just another way of saying, "I'm sorry, it's worth nothing." No!

So the question we now have to ask is,

50 years on, is it still worth nothing? I hope not.

OK, we'll put that away.

The tea service that you have brought along is actually

very, very unusual. Do you use it? No, we don't, actually.

It is stored away in bubble wrap and doesn't see the light of day, really.

That is a shame. I think, break out the cucumber sandwiches.

A good idea, yes. It is made by the Wedgwood factory, and

it really shows you how developed English tea drinking had become.

This was made sometime in the 1880s, 1890s, and this is designed

to save the lady of the house any effort whatsoever.

It is a beautiful invention and, of course, we all know, having been

to Chinese restaurants, that these things are called Lazy Susans.

They rotate like this. So, there you have a rotating Lazy Susan.

But the teapot into which our manservant has brought

and filled it with water is on this wonderful stirrup-shaped pivot,

so that here we go... Do you take your milk first? Oh, yes, please.

I shall be Mother. There we are. A little milk in there.

And then we aim... Let's hope the aim is good. Ooh, look at that.

Perfect. Lovely. I mean, this is just such a wonderful invention.

I would love to have one of these at home.

This sort of contraption would have been very expensive to produce.

You have not only got the bone china,

but a patent shaped teapot in a silver-plated stirrup support.

So, a factory has to work with another factory to produce

this patent item. And I think, for that reason, we don't see them.

Very rare. I haven't seen one before.

To a collector of patent objects,

someone whose collection sensibilities go beyond

just porcelain, this is a wonderfully Victorian timepiece.

OK. So I think we can say that the time has come, 50 years on,

something like this would be worth somewhere in the region of,

let's say, conservatively - because there are one or two

little cracks - somewhere between ?500 and ?800. Lovely.

Absolutely brilliant. One lump or two? Oh, one, please.

A little picture of pigs by Briton Riviere,

the famous Victorian animal painter. Probably about 1870. Oh, yeah?

Yes, rather fun. Why pigs?

Because I am married to a pig farmer and we farm very near here.

That is on the estate? It is on the estate at Wentworth Woodhouse. Yes.

The farm was actually built from the winnings of the racehorse

Whistlejacket. The one painted by Stubbs that used to hang here?

Yes, yes. That's the one.

His winnings built the farm and the racehorses used to be

housed down there, and then it was turned into a pig farm.

Into a working pig farm.

It was from my mother, originally my grandfather's. Right.

He thought, being married to a pig farmer, I'd like the picture.

Very appropriate. He is quite right. They are fun, aren't they?

It is called Great Expectations

and I suppose this could be you bringing the swill? It could be!

Yes. I don't do an awful lot of work on the farm,

I tend to leave that to my husband.

But I will go up occasionally on the feed round.

And Great Expectations because, of course, they are very hungry. Yes.

A terrific fun picture.

Now, I was thinking about it, because Briton Riviere is

a very, very good painter of animals, particularly dogs.

And he always said you have to know the dog

before you can paint it properly.

And so what you look for in these pictures

is that extraordinary psychological reading of an animal.

You can get its character, you can

get its soul out of a Briton Riviere picture. Very, very well painted.

So I looked at it quite carefully

and then I looked at the signature, which is very bright red, isn't it?

Yes, it is. Now, in my trade, picture dealing, that is

a bit of a red rag to a bull.

Because I worry about pictures

that are a little bit too red in the signature.

And I had a very close look at it and I looked

for characterisation in the animals

and I looked for all sorts of things.

I looked for delicacy and skill in the watercolour. And I saw it.

But then, I thought, is it really by him?

OK. Also, it is an incredibly elaborate frame

you have got on this.

Yes, it is. I must admit I am not overly fond of the frame.

It is the picture I like. It looks a bit incongruous. It does.

A Palladian pig. Yes. Rather oddly done.

You see, pictures that are framed very elaborately,

often you are too busy concentrating on the grand frame

to think, well, could this possibly be right?

You can probably guess where I'm going.

Yes. I'm afraid I don't think it is by Briton Riviere. OK.

I think the addition of a signature makes it a fake. Right.

Until that is put on, it is a copy.

Right. Now, the distinction may seem very small

but, actually, it is quite big.

Because one intends to deceive and the other is a homage. Yes.

But it is still a great picture. Now, I did also look it up.

Yeah? Which is, I know, cheating, but it was quite useful in this case.

There is a print almost exactly that size that was made after

the real original picture in 1871.

And I'm pretty sure that what somebody has done is copy it

very, very carefully. And if you look, there is

a slight clunkiness around the top of the black pig's head.

Can you see? He has not entirely understood the anatomy of the pig.

Now, Briton Riviere used to go into knackers' yards,

he used to look at the anatomy of animals very, very carefully.

And he drew them non-stop.

So one thing he really did do was get the shape of a pig,

and a pig's head. Right.

And there is a slight disjointed inarticulacy about these animals

which makes me think, yes, definitely not right. OK.

Had it been the original Briton Riviere, I suppose

I would have put a couple of thousand pounds on it.

But actually, the truth of the matter is, it is

only worth ?200 to ?300. OK. That's very nice, anyway. Thank you.

But it's a lot of fun, isn't it? Yes, it is. Yes. I do like it.

Well, I have to start off by saying that we are up against it today.

Because it is blowing a gale, and if you can hear any creaking,

it is our canopy.

But the great thing about this programme,

it is a learning curve for me.

Because I am out there to tell people about what they have got.

But now and then, I need to be told, and you need to tell me

about the lady involved with the stained-glass panel.

Right. Well, the lady is my grandmother's first cousin,

Lilian Pocock. Her parents were both artists with the Royal Academy.

And she was educated by her mother,

together with her seven brothers and sisters.

She became a stained-glass artist.

This was a panel that she exhibited in Paris in 1913,

just before the outbreak of the war.

That is a picture of her as a little girl, painted by her aunt,

who was also a stained-glass window artist.

So, it runs in the family, really.

So, was she a local girl? Was she Yorkshire?

No, no. She was down in London. Was she, now?

Yes, the family came from London.

When you look at a stained-glass window like this,

you would be forgiven for thinking it could be roundabout 1890.

Um... But let's have a look at it,

because I think it is such a beautiful composition.

I am for ever seeing images of Adam and Eve

and I never thought I would want to take one home

and put it on the wall. Having said that,

I would have to put this in the window to see it properly.

Because if we just... Let's just take that face.

I mean, that is just remarkable.

The expression, it says everything.

That is pure fear, isn't it? And I feel sorry for Adam. Look at him.

I mean, he is looking somewhat desolate.

So, an interesting composition,

and also, I can see here it is lettered with a text from the Bible.

I have got to admit that, on the learning curve,

I have never heard of Lilian Pocock.

I put my hand up, and I should, really.

Because there is a stained-glass panel here, a photograph of it,

of St Nicholas, I believe.

And that just happens to be in a church less than three miles

from where I live in Buckinghamshire.

So, it just shows the proficiency of her work.

What is interesting, though, is with so many Arts and Crafts designers,

they are multi-taskers as well.

They can turn their hand to so many different things.

Is that a Christmas card? It is a Christmas card, yes.

Printed and then signed by her, is it? Yes.

And next to that, December On The Downs, which...?

They're a book of poems that she wrote.

She wrote the poems and she has illustrated it as well.

So, how can I do this? I have not come across this lady before.

I am presented with a stained-glass panel

and I've got to give you some indication as to value.

I often think, what would I pay for it in a gallery?

I think I would have to pay somewhere between ?2,000 and ?3,000

for that stained-glass panel.

But the look in your eye tells me that no matter what I say,

it is going nowhere! No, it is not going anywhere.

Just back to my study,

where it sits on the windowsill, so I can look at it.

You are a very lucky lady. I am.

You have brought me Zeus the Thunderer. Really?

And what is he doing with you?

Um... This belonged to my grandad's second wife, and it was passed to

my mother, and since my mother passed away, it has been passed to me.

And you wear it, do you love it? I do wear it. It is beautiful.

I really love it.

I took it to a local jeweller and they said that it was just

gold coloured, and there was nothing of value to the brooch.

Well, in a funny way, I think they were barking up the wrong tree.

The value of this object is in the cameo, rather than in the setting.

The context of this object

has an enormous amount to do with the house that we are in.

Because it is the passion for the antique,

and in the 18th and 19th century,

the people were so interested in ancient Greek and Rome

that it pervaded every aspect of the decorative arts,

including jewellery.

And the other thing is, if you were living here,

you would not only furnish the inside of your house with

ancient sculptures and with bas-reliefs

of Zeus the Thunderer and Aphrodite and Cupid and Psyche,

you would also go to where they once lived, these gods, if you like,

and go to the Mediterranean countries,

and that was going on in the 18th century,

but also in the 19th century.

But it wasn't enough just to go there and look at ancient Rome

and ancient Greece and see the frescoes and the mosaics,

but you want to bring something back.

And this is the highest level of souvenir -

"souvenir" is to remember,

and so this is a way in which you'd remember your grand tour.

And so we're brought an enormous number of cameos

to the Antiques Roadshow,

and most of them are not of this kind of quality,

this is a very superior one.

It's not the greatest cameo,

because that might have been carved from stone.

This is actually carved from shell. Yes. And it's a soft material.

A cameo, of course,

is carving down the white layer to reveal the darker layer beneath.

And so it's a very, very nice one indeed.

There's another signal to that as well.

The back, we can just see very hesitant stock numbers

and a signature, so the person that carved this cameo in Naples,

in about 1880, felt that he was interested enough

to leave his own mark on it.

I think in honour of the fact

that it's a really rather good shell cameo,

possibly by one of the greatest hands,

by Tommaso Saulini, for instance, working in Italy and Rome,

you'd want to mount it to honour that, in a weird way.

So, this is a gold mount. Right!

And sometimes they're a pinchbeck and sometimes a base metal.

And it would have been the sort of thing that a lady would have worn

during the day in a house like this.

Albeit in the 19th century.

And she would have thought it modest,

but it would show her status

as somebody who appreciated the antique,

who loved all things ancient, and that she was a scholarly woman.

Now, how does that add up? Are you going to wear it now?

SHE LAUGHS I don't know!

Don't know!

I think it might have to go in some safe somewhere.

But there's no... There is no hallmark on the gold, is that...?

No. No, we don't care.

There was no obligation to mark gold,

and in a funny way, the mount, in my view,

is the least interesting part of this concept, really,

because this is about art, and about appreciation, about the antique,

the king...the greatest of all of all the gods, and here we find it.

I think it's very enviable. It's not going to be a great value,

because there were an enormous number of them made,

and it's probably worth, even with a gold mount, ?400, ?500, ?600.

But it's not the point to me. No.

It's about context and about revivifying this subject,

which you've done, you brought it.

That's wonderful. Thank you very much.

This is a very grand piece of furniture,

and very appropriate that it should be seen

in front of a house like this,

because it's around the same date,

it has all of the sophistication of a very good maker,

and now I understand that, in fact, it came from this house.

Yes, me parents bought it in 1949.

And how do you know that?

We've got the catalogue! Oh, right, OK.

Ah! Now...

So, here we've got the Wentworth Woodhouse arms, coat of arms,

on the front, and then it says, "Important sale

"of a large portion of the contents of Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire."

And I think this is it.

"A handsome Louis XVI-style walnut escritoire, canted at the corners

"and veneered with deep fruitwood bandings," and so on and so forth.

And it's an interesting catalogue entry,

because I disagree with nearly all of it. Right!

Except that it's a very fine piece of furniture.

It has a French influence, but it's, to me, very clearly English,

rather than Louis XVI, which suggests French.

And I think the wood here is mahogany rather than walnut,

and with kingwood, a wonderful coloured wood,

going round the banding, round the drawers,

and really giving quite a fancy look to it.

And it dates to around the time of the house, 1760 to 1780,

that sort of period. Ah.

It has a classical feeling to it,

and yet it also has these lovely handles, which are slightly rococo.

And if we open the secretaire part,

there you've got the drawers in the inside,

which really show the character of the colour

as it would have been when it was first made.

Much, much more colourful than it is now,

and it would probably have been even more colourful than that.

Kingwood is a purplish colour when it's new,

and mahogany is quite a red colour, and you can see that from the inside

here, because these little drawers are, in fact, made of mahogany.

With beautiful little dovetail joints... Yeah.

Lovely, lovely workmanship.

Would clearly have been in a family room,

but an important family room, I would think. Right.

Which members of the family could work and write

and keep their correspondence private. Right.

It has this sophisticated canted corner - curved, canted corner -

which is inlaid with lighter wood to make it look like fluting,

which you get on classical columns.

One of the difficulties about this piece -

and let's pop it up and shut the drawer -

you can see that it, like Wentworth Woodhouse,

has had quite a hard life. Yes.

It's now got very little colour on the front,

it's all kind of bleached out.

What can you do to it to...? Well, this is a bit of a problem.

To get back to the colours of the period colour,

which is more what you've got on the top,

it would need an extremely skilled craftsman, furniture restorer,

and it could cost you ?2,000, ?3,000 to restore it.

Crikey.

The curious thing is that you might find a decorator

who would pay ?3,000, ?4,000 for this piece

in the condition that it's in, because of the way it looks...

Right. ..in a kind of distressed state. Yeah!

If you see what I mean. Yeah.

It's slightly difficult - if somebody was to buy it

and spend the money on having it really sympathetically restored,

I could see this going for, I don't know, ?10,000.

In a way, I like it as it is. I do, yes.

With just a few little repairs, with the history of it all in there.

Yeah.

You've got a piece that is really of very, very high quality here.

Yes, yes.

And it gives you a direct connection with the house. It is, yeah!

# Into each heart some tears must fall

# But someday the sun will shine. #

Here we are, good old Yorkshire weather.

It's raining, I'm struggling to hold the umbrella against the wind,

and we've cracked open the rain macs.

Any minute now I'm going to have to put one on myself.

But actually, I think it could turn sunny.

I can see a tiny sailor's patch of blue in the sky,

so I've got my fingers crossed.

# Into each life some rain must fall

# But too much is falling in mine. #

For me, your vase is the absolute epitome of Regency elegance.

It combines a gorgeous shape with this fantastic decoration.

That floral panel, there, is hand-painted.

It's a little work of art on a piece of porcelain.

But the really infuriating thing about it is...

it's got no mark, has it?

I don't know, because I haven't looked, myself.

Well, there is no mark there. Right.

Why did someone make such a lovely, rich, wonderful object

and not put a mark on it?

What can you tell me about it?

Well, I've actually brought it on behalf of my mother's partner,

who couldn't be here today.

So, I'm telling the story as he told me.

And it was actually bought by his father, I think it was in 1959.

I don't know why he bought it - presumably he liked it.

I can see why. Yeah!

I think what's been special for Peter,

who owns it, is that it's a local pottery,

or he thinks it is, but there's some confusion about that.

OK, and how does the confusion arise?

Well, the confusion's happened

because he had it valued in the '70s

and they didn't think it was Rockingham,

they thought it was Coalport.

Is it or isn't it? That's the big question. Yes.

So, unhelpfully, it's not marked.

Well, the absolutely wonderful fact is -

standing here in Wentworth Woodhouse -

is that this vase is Rockingham.

And the Rockingham factory had a very, very generous patron,

and that patron was Earl Fitzwilliam,

who lived in this house.

And the factory itself was down the road from here in Swinton.

So, this is a piece of local porcelain, of Yorkshire porcelain,

made around about 1830 under the patronage of the owners

of this magnificent building.

And I would say, also,

I have noticed there's a bit of damage on this vase, isn't there?

Yeah. There's a chip there

and there's a crack round the back of it.

Yes. People like their porcelain perfect, normally.

It doesn't matter too much,

because this wonderful Rockingham porcelain vase

is worth ?1,500. Wow!

Oh, I'm surprised at that. Not a bad improvement on 21 quid. Yeah!

I bought this book at an auction in part of a job lot that I bought,

and it was another book I was after,

and this was just something that came with it.

This is the works of Lord Byron

published in Paris in 1831.

And it's got a letter. It's got a letter inside,

which is addressed to the publishers of the book,

denying that Byron wrote a thing called The Vampyre,

whatever that was.

So, this is a letter - it's got crossings out... Yes.

..and it's foxed. And here it is, signed by Byron.

Signed by Byron. And, of course, he's using a quill... Yes.

Yeah. So, there's a big quill mark there.

And this is Venice, April 27th, 1819.

That's right.

And it's all... The envelope is all part of it,

so the envelope is here...

On the back here is, "To Monsieur Galignani," in Paris.

So, it's all in there.

Yes. Incredibly exciting, isn't it? Yes.

I mean, that IS Byron's signature, isn't it?

To have something which is written by Byron is exciting.

Do you like Byron?

Er, he's a little bit heavy for me.

A bit heavy. Yeah, he's a bit heavy.

In his time he was called "mad, bad and dangerous to know", you know.

But...he's a bit heavy for you.

But I'm delighted. I'm so pleased you brought this in,

because this letter comes in time after time to the Roadshow.

It is a facsimile. Oh, is it? It's not an original.

Oh, I see.

It's not an original - it's absolutely wonderful.

It looks exactly like an original, doesn't it? It does, it does.

But it's an engraving.

You can't see the platemarks,

because it's been specially made like this,

but it looks exactly like a Byron letter.

It IS a Byron letter, but it was sent to Galignani.

Now, Galignani...offices in Paris were burnt down,

and with it all the Byron letters, including this letter.

So, that's how we know it's a facsimile? No.

This letter... This letter was burnt, the original was burnt.

This is the only thing we have of it. Right.

But it occurs in every single edition of the Galignani edition.

Oh! And as I say, people come in to the Roadshow

and very often it's folded like this

and it's got the original envelope,

and they say, "We've brought you a Byron letter."

And I say, "Is it about The Vampyre?"

And they say, "How did you know?"

It's a curiosity. What are we going to value it at?

I would think very little, actually.

Very little. Well, I'm going to say ?50, how about that?

That's... Now, had it been the original, the long-lost,

the one that escaped from the fire and all that sort of thing,

we'd be talking...I don't know,

50,000? Good heavens! But 50 will do. Yeah, 50 will do.

Thank you. As an extra part of another lot.

That's great, Thank you for bringing it in. Yeah.

Thank you very much.

So, I guess this is your sherry glass, is it?

It's a punchbowl.

It's a punchbowl, is it? Yes. OK.

And you've known it for ever?

Yes, it's been in the family ever since I was child. OK.

And it belonged to my grandfather, who was a member of the hunt.

The Beverley Hunt. OK. Yes.

And the story that me mother always told me was the squire or the lord

of wherever this hunt was borrowed ?5 from my grandfather

and he never gave him the money back.

And then two years later, there was a knock on the door

and he said, "I'd like you to have this punchbowl."

And so this has been a kind of treasured family possession

ever since?

Yes, and then when my grandparents died, it belonged my mother. OK.

And when the war was on and I was a child,

we had an underground shelter built in the garden,

and when the sirens used to go,

we used to go and sleep down there overnight,

and my father used to carry me down wrapped in a blanket

and my mother used to follow on behind

with the punchbowl wrapped in a blanket!

Oh, sweet! Isn't that lovely?

I mean, the fact is that working people didn't have stuff, did they?

I mean, today we're just oozing with stuff,

we've got so much junk in our lives,

but the fact is that this was elevated to a status of value

just next to that of their child.

They cared for it, didn't they?

They liked it a lot! My mother did, yeah.

I see. And she wasn't all that keen on you?

And my mother used to say...

She could play a little tune on it, like this...

The Bluebells of Scotland, she used to say she played on it.

I don't...

It WILL ring.

It's got a very deep, low hum that's coming off here.

It's English.

It is a punchbowl, absolutely right,

and that story... Cos the hunt was seriously into punch.

Punch was a... You'd have everybody's punchbowl,

and there were two ways of dispensing it - one was to ladle it,

but the other way was to do it in a little device that worked on vacuum.

You could just hold it up - a toddy lifter.

You could lift up the drink, lift your thumb,

and it would go into your glass. Oh!

Entirely handmade, 1865, thereabout.

So, it's quite early. Yes.

In terms of value today, nobody's going to use it as a punchbowl,

because people don't drink punch like they used to,

but the fact is, it's a really nice antique decorating piece.

And this will sit very nicely -

not that you're thinking of selling it, or would sell it -

but the fact is that it is a great decorating piece,

and I suppose if it went to auction, wouldn't go for a fortune,

but probably about ?200 or ?300, I should think.

Oh, very nice. Which is not nearly as good as your story.

Oh, well, that's very interesting, and very nice to know.

Thanks for coming in. All right. Thank you!

Now, of its type, this is a very good quality skeleton clock.

Is it something you love?

I do, because it was me father's, yes.

The only thing I know about it is that it was handed down

from eldest son to eldest son,

and my father obviously handed it down to me,

and I'm led to believe that it was his father's before him.

Well, let's talk through it.

These things can be judged on, A, their scrolls

and, B, the number of spokes in the wheels.

Right. The basic ones are four-spokers,

then you get five-spokers,

but all these wheels are six-spoked,

particularly you can see there, six-spoked wheels. Right.

And even down to the skeletonised barrel here, is also six-spoked.

Now, on a cheaper clock,

that would have just been one solid piece of brass.

Right. So, this is lovely quality.

Lovely pillars, lovely scrolls, and, of course,

you've got the passing strike - that's a "ding" on the hour. Uh-huh.

As the time moved round, the hammer pulls back, and on the hour...

DING

Just the "ding" of that - what we call a passing strike. Yeah.

So, really... I called it a clock, I should have called it a timepiece,

because it's just basically a ticking clock,

except that single "ding". Right.

Now, Sharpe of Bawtry.

We're not too far from Bawtry, are we?

No, about 25 mile away. And have you been a local man?

All my life, yes. All your life.

It's absolutely typical of the 1860s.

It obviously hasn't been used for a long time,

because I see that the suspension is broken.

When do you last remember it working?

Probably when I was about 14, 15 year old.

Then after that, it just became obsolete as a clock.

I can actually remember, me father, he could strip that down.

He used to strip it all down - every piece come off it -

and he'd clean it, and off it went again.

Wow.

That's really good to hear, that he was able to do that. Well...

Did he train you on at all?

He might have shown me one or two times, how to do it, but...

I hadn't got me father's patience for it.

So, you've never had it dealt with in the meantime, have you?

I haven't, no.

My mother wanted to have it repaired, and I resisted,

because the last person that worked on that were me father.

And it's something that says nobody else should touch it.

I would like to see it working, from my point of view,

but I quite understand your viewpoint,

that the last person to work on it was your dad.

Yeah. You don't want to touch it. That's correct, yes.

So, there we are. It's staying like that.

I love it.

And I don't think I'd be sticking my neck out

by saying that even in this condition, at auction,

it's going to fetch between ?1,200 and ?1,500.

You're joking!

Wow.

So... Wow.

..the main thing is that you cherish it,

and I hope it's worth a little bit more than you thought.

It's certainly worth a lot more than I thought, yes.

These are absolutely gorgeous.

But what are they for,

and when did you last use them?

When I was young,

we lived in a large house and it had a big dining room table,

and we'd have salt on the table, one near me dad and one near me mum,

and then we'd have our little spoons, silver spoons, to put our salt on.

That's exactly what they are. Yes.

And actually, as salts,

they wouldn't be out of place in the house that we're in. Yes.

They are designed for this sort of a house.

Fantastic quality.

Is this all silver? It is, solid silver.

Cast sliver. And there you can see the nuts and bolts,

where the cherubs actually attach.

This bit here, is this silver as well, or...?

Everything is silver.

Right. And this is gold...? That's gilding.

Is that because of the salt? That's to protect from the salt.

Yeah. They're actually Russian. Oh, right!

And when we get to the marks, which are hidden down there,

they're actually made in St Petersburg... Wow!

Wonderful centre. ..by a chap, and there's marks in there, CT,

it's Carl Tegelstein. Right.

Interestingly, I've seen pieces by him before,

and they're always this fabulous quality.

I know they're a devil to clean.

Yes, well, if you had these, it wasn't the thing that worried you!

Yes, there'd be somebody else doing it! Exactly.

Right. Exactly.

Where did they come from?

What are you doing with Russian salts of this quality?

I've no idea, because I don't think anybody in the family

ever went to Russia. My dad was a doctor,

and often he got given gifts instead of, you know, payment for...

You know, it's amazing how often I've come across fabulous things

where a doctor... Yeah.

You know, tapestries and things like that, he got given.

What is interesting, as well, is that for rococo revival

in the 19th century, these are very early rococo revival.

So...

How much are a pair of Carl Tegelstein double salts

going to be worth?

Er...

I think we're probably looking at least...

?5,000.

Mm...very nice, yeah!

Great! You're happy.

Yes! I thought maybe a couple of hundred quid!

I'll give you 300 now!

No, no.

And they could well go in excess of that. Right.

Because this... If you think of the market for Russian silver today,

the tremendous amount of money that these oligarchs have,

I mean, wow, a Russian oligarch

would love to have this pair of salts.

No prizes for guessing whose work we're featuring

in this week's Rogues Gallery.

Clarice Cliff, of course.

These have been brought along by Judith Miller.

And normally in Rogues Gallery, we're trying to spot one fake,

but this week she's pulled a bit of a fast one,

because three of these are fake and only one is genuine.

Can you tell which is which?

Here's Judith with some clues.

MUSIC: "Pink Panther Theme" by Henry Mancini

With its whimsical landscape and bold colour palette,

this vase appears to be a classic Clarice Cliff creation.

But is it?

Smothered in triangles and diamonds,

this is a typical early Clarice Cliff pattern,

but is it all that it seems?

Art Deco at its absolute best.

Striking shapes, daring patterns.

But did Clarice ever design this piece?

Finally, like all the others,

this is marked with the classic backstamp.

It's what looks like a 1930s cream jug,

but did Clarice make this?

Now, Judith, we see a lot of Clarice Cliff coming along to the programme.

It sort of divides people. I mean, what do you all think?

Fans of Clarice Cliff, raise your hands.

Oh! Oh. Come on! Oh, OK, well done with the crutch back there.

What about you? I love it.

And I think we've all got to remember just how important

this woman was in the history of British pottery.

She was born in 1899 and she hated that,

because she saw herself as a woman of the 20th century.

She was very modern in her outlook.

When she went into the potteries at 13,

all the Staffordshire potteries were making

little plates and things with flowers on them -

very conservative, very Victorian.

She went into Wilkinson's and she went,

"No, I don't want to do that any more. I'm going to change this."

This is the Jazz Age, this is the whole excitement of the 1920s,

and she said, "I want vibrant patterns."

And she certainly delivered. She certainly did.

And, of course, just as you were saying with our friends here,

a lot of people in the potteries hated it.

I mean, she was really shunned by a lot of the potters

because they thought this would never sell, nobody would go for it.

But she said,

"I want pots for women, painted by women."

Were they popular at the time?

They became very popular actually very quickly

and it really took off.

Because we do see quite a lot of it on the Roadshow.

And as I see it coming past me, I think, "How much did this woman do?"

Well, of course, she had a big team

and it was over a long period of time.

Eight million.

So that's why we see so much on the Roadshow.

And when it comes to looking at Clarice Cliff

and trying to assess whether it's genuine or not, how does one begin?

I imagine with eight million items out there,

we know there are a few fakes, clearly, as demonstrated here.

You look for the style. She loved...

The early period, she loved the geometrics,

so we look for that, with strong colours.

We look for great shapes.

She used very classical shapes and then she made her own shapes.

The paintresses were incredibly good

but Clarice said in the early days

that she wanted them to use exaggerated brushstrokes

because she wanted everyone to know that it was hand-painted.

That was really important to her.

You look for, you know, her blacks are very particular.

You look for those elements of style.

So, what do you think? Mm, well...

OK.

Looking at the blue on here, that little jug,

I thought it was too badly painted.

Looking at the red one, I thought,

"I didn't know Clarice Cliff did stuff like this."

Maybe she did in the very early days,

but it doesn't look like the kind of Clarice Cliff that I've seen.

So, then it came between the yellow one and the green one.

There is a difference in the weight of the two.

In the end, I plumped for this being the genuine one, the green one,

because of the brushstrokes, because it felt a bit more solid.

And they've all got Clarice Cliff marks underneath,

so that wasn't much help.

So, this is the one I thought was the genuine one. So, come on, then.

Well, this is the pattern "Applique Caravan".

So, this was one of her patterns? That was one of her patterns.

But it's not "Applique Caravan", that is a fake.

And you can tell that by this orange is not right,

it hasn't got enough depth to it.

And you know something that fakers do, they become self-conscious.

And, you know, this is just too self-conscious

if you look at a real one. So, that's not the real one. OK.

This "Blue W", that was made by Wilkinson's in the 1930s,

but it was painted later.

It's badly painted. It's badly painted.

And this is original "Bizarre", this Isis vase.

The real clue about this one is look at that banding inside.

Let's have a look. It's really badly done

Ooh, that is badly done. I wish I'd spotted that. You see?

That is. And look, you see how on the lid here, it comes out?

And, you see, this... beautiful Athens jug,

"Sunspot" pattern,

3? grand, 4 grand. Oh...

gosh. These...

zilch.

Well, that is a blow. I know.

Well, at least now you know what to look for.

Have a look at our website

if you'd like more tips about Clarice Cliff.

This is an amazingly eclectic collection of jewellery.

And we've got, I hope you don't mind me saying,

a rather grumpy looking man here.

What's the connection? We've always called him Grandfather.

This is my great-great-great-grandfather.

Gosh. And he was one of the original settlers

that went out to South Africa.

He was an engineer and he was sort of chosen to join a party

to go out and make a community there.

And that was in 1820, he went out there.

And he's always lived on our dining room wall, glaring down at us.

If anybody said anything wrong, we'd say,

"Oh, Grandfather doesn't approve."

So, he's been in our family for a long time.

When my grandmother died in 1960,

this was sent over from South Africa to us.

Oh, fantastic.

So, all of this jewellery has really come down through him? Yes.

He went out as a sort of ordinary...

He wasn't a gentleman, but he was a bit of an entrepreneur.

He set up his farm and then, within a few years,

he owned a butcher's and he was a wagon-maker.

And when he went out, gold and diamonds

hadn't been found in South Africa,

but he actually had shares in the first gold and diamond mines.

Seriously?

And the Stanton family became one of the richest,

wealthiest families in South Africa building up the community.

But two generations later, his great-grandson James, which

was my great-grandfather, lost all of the riches apart from some bits.

Some bits of jewellery, which we've got here.

We've got everything from paste costume jewellery, through to

wonderful pieces of late Victorian jewellery, as we see here.

But my eye is drawn a little bit to this gold bangle,

this delightful little cat brooch and the diamond ring. Yes.

So if we start with the bangle, what is the story behind that?

Well, James Stanton, who lost all our family riches,

it was his wife's birthday coming up and he'd forgotten her birthday.

So he put his hands into his pockets, took out some gold sovereigns,

and it was a great handful, and he handed it to one of his workers

and said, "I've forgotten my wife's birthday,

"deal with it," and dumped it in this guy's hand.

There was a total misunderstanding. He melted down the sovereigns,

had them melted down and had them turned into a bangle,

rather than buying something. Oh, no.

My great-grandfather, when it appeared, was a little bit

sort of bemused, but handed it over anyway as a present.

Oh, God. How to get it horribly wrong. But never mind.

Is it something that you wear at the moment, as well?

There have been a couple of occasions where I've worn it out,

but it kind of stays in a box now. Stays in a box?

And the diamond ring, what's the story behind that?

I wear it as my engagement ring.

It was handed down to me

when my grandmother passed away, but it's been in the family for years.

So, it's really nice to have something

that's got that sort of heritage to it.

It is, isn't it? Fabulous that it's an engagement ring

and there's the sentiment there as well.

It's really, really quite super.

The cut of the stone is what we call an "old" cut.

So, we're looking at the late 19th, into the early 20th century

when that cut was being developed.

And by the time we get to the 1930s, we're getting into

the very serious, bright, sparkly diamonds that we're aware of today.

So, really quite...

Two beautiful pieces of jewellery in their own ways.

The little cat dates from around about 1890,

a period when anything fun and amusing

was becoming popular in jewellery as well.

So, again, nine-carat gold

with a little natural seed pearl between the paws.

So, he really does look as though he's having fun, doesn't he?

So, it's great...great fun,

and a lovely collection of jewellery to have.

And as far as these pieces are concerned,

the little pussy cat, you'd probably get round about ?150 to ?200.

Wow!

The gold bangle is interesting,

and in today's market, it's going to be worth about ?1,000.

And then the diamond ring, it weighs just over two carats,

which is a nice size to have.

Unfortunately, there is a flaw in there,

which is a bit of a shame, which you can see.

But even so, it's still worth between

?4,000 and ?6,000 at auction.

And as a whole, these three pieces here, we're looking at somewhere

between ?5,000 and ?7,000, as a collection of jewellery. Very nice.

Well, it's been lovely to meet you. And this young man.

And thank you very much for bringing them in.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

The 1920s and '30s

produced some of the most simply

elegant pieces of ceramic.

And this, without doubt, is one of them. It's so strong, isn't it?

It's so simple.

But what is your connection with it?

It belonged to my paternal grandmother.

We think she bought it at auction.

My dad always liked it. When my mum and dad got married,

she gave it to my father.

So, it's just been hung on the wall ever since.

It's a piece you've grown up with. You've always known it.

Always. Yeah. Do you like it?

I love it, yeah. We all like it.

It is a beautiful thing. And the fact that it's so strong

and so Art Deco at the front

actually belies what's on the back,

because the back doesn't hold any punches either.

Look at that for a series of markings.

And what we're looking at there, all of this detail on the back

is completely hand-painted.

And we've got some wonderful information there.

"Potted by:- Doulton Co."

So, we're talking about quite a rare piece.

Richard Garbe, as an artist,

was really in his heyday around this time.

We're talking the 1920s and the 1930s.

He was Head of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art from 1926.

The nice thing about this, we can actually date it quite closely,

because Richard Garbe was linked with

many of the great institutions -

the Royal Academy and the Royal College of Art -

and, actually, he was made

an associate of the Royal Academy in 1929.

So, for the fact we have "ARA" helps us date this post-1929.

Now, he worked as a sculptor in wood, in ivory,

stonemasonry as well,

but he also did this brief stint at Royal Doulton where he created

a number of beautiful figurines and these very dramatic masks,

and they're often identified by the fact that

they come in just these very simple glazes,

so the lines and the shapes

and form of the mask actually just speak for itself.

So, there were only 100 of these produced.

And the white ones are rarer.

There's also some indication that

they were produced in a celadon jade-green.

So, a price.

It's a desirable thing. It's a stylish thing.

And I think you'd have to look well in excess of ?1,000 to replace it.

Lovely. Thank you.

It's a great example of the period and it really sums up the 1930s.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much

Do you know, as soon as I saw these,

I was taken back to the mid-'70s

and just felt huge guilt,

because we were never allowed these.

My parents just considered them too violent,

but every weekend, I would sneak off with my pocket money

to the local newsagent's and buy one of these.

The perfect thing was, you could hide them.

I had a little stash of these and it just brings back

such great memories. Are you a collector?

No, I loved these from when I was a child.

These came out in the late '50s, and I just loved the artwork.

I bought the comic because of the artwork on the front.

The inside didn't mean much to me, it was the artwork.

And for years, through my teenage years and my adult years,

I wondered what medium they were painted in, how big they were,

who painted them. And then I saw some guy selling these. Right.

And I thought, "I must have some of these, it's part of my childhood."

And I love the fact that you've got this Cellophane here

which shows the building up of the comics.

So, you'd have the original image.

If you lift that up, you can see how that works.

This was the overlay.

So, you'd say, "Right. OK." And they would adjust it and move it around.

And the same on this one.

This cut-out has obviously been in the wrong place

and someone at the top has said,

"No, we've got to move that up a touch."

Who were they published by?

They were published by Fleetway Library.

They also did Battle, War Picture Library, War At Sea, many others.

The story goes that Fleetway had this art warehouse,

which was virtually abandoned,

where the entire stock of the Fleetway art was stored there.

The interiors of the comics were all destroyed years ago

because they were a fire hazard.

Because these were on boards, they were deemed to be a fire hazard.

But people used to walk on top of these. They were worthless.

Worthless then,

but now they're starting to find a collectors' market.

Because like you, these range from the '50s up to the mid-'70s,

and to us, they bring back such memories.

And to me, they're really one of the neglected, or uncollected,

forms of artwork. They're so iconic of that period

and really graphic.

I would get them framed properly, so that they're conserved.

I mean, I would pay ?150 to ?200 each.

So, collectively, you'd see in an auction an estimate of 800 to 1,200.

If they made a bit more, I wouldn't be surprised. That's good.

I think my wife might appreciate them more now.

She might let me put one on the wall.

It sounds like what my mother was like when I was a child.

In coming to a show, you just never know

what you're going to find. I mean, that's really

one of the great pleasures of doing the show.

And what a peach! Oh,

I think that's just yummy!

So, I need to find out where it comes from.

Well, I went to visit my uncle and aunt in Belgium last year.

We visited a glass museum where there was a glassworks

and I was so impressed by the glass that, when I went home,

my uncle came out with this and gave it to me.

How does it figure in his life? Do you know anything about that?

It was his mother's, and his mother was Russian.

And he thought that the vase was Russian. OK. But you know different?

But I noticed it had Galle on it.

And that's where it has Galle on it, just there.

Emile Galle, arguably as great as Lalique in terms of pushing

the boundaries of glass-making,

cameo being his speciality, where you form glass in layers of colour,

exactly in the manner of forming a gobstopper -

as you suck through the colours, another one appears -

he used acid to selectively burn through

the layers in order to create the design.

And I must say that is just beautiful.

But I'm not sure it's Emile

because there are three forms of Galle signature.

This is the classic, in terms of it looks like a signature.

After his death in 1905,

they introduced a star onto here, which indicated posthumous Galle.

Then there's a third type, a third signature,

which says "Galle TYP" - T-Y-P.

And T`Y`P stands for type - Galle type.

But this is the original signature, but I think it is after his death.

I've shown it to all sorts of people around

and they've all scratched their head saying,

"When was this made?" And the consensus seems to be about 1925 -

20 years after the death of the master.

Irrespective of the date,

that is just such a beautifully composed piece.

You know, with the ice floe and the sky and all the rest of it,

it's just... It's a corker.

And I suppose your little present comes to the market,

I suppose at auction, you selling it,

that is going to fetch between ?2,000 and ?3,000.

Oh, my. Right.

Very good. Very good. Very good. Really? Oh, I'm with you, baby.

So, I haven't got to give it back to my uncle?

No, don't give it back to your uncle. No, blow your uncle.

Don't tell him. Does he watch the Roadshow?

No, he's in Belgium. Excellent. Great. You're onto a winner.

When you brought this in to me

and unwrapped it in this period newspaper - I think

the period newspaper dates back to the 1950s -

I had no idea what was going to be inside.

But you brought out what I can only say is a bit of a shipwreck.

Yes, definitely. What's the history?

Well, I was aware of it probably around 1991.

It belonged to my late husband.

I was aware he had this ship that he said wanted re-rigging.

But I never saw it.

We moved from down south up here about 12 years ago.

It was moved in all the wrapping as it was, stringed up again,

I hadn't ever seen it,

and put into the garage with the storage boxes

that wouldn't go anywhere else.

Last year, I did a bit of decluttering in the garage

and thought, "Well, I'm going to look inside this paper parcel,"

having never seen it, and it was that.

Did you think it was a project

he was going to take on in his retirement?

Probably. Probably, yes.

But if it's going back to 1951,

he was a very young man around the age of 29,

after the Second World War, coming back into working in London,

and I don't know much of the story of how he got it,

because we were married later on in life.

So, it was before my time.

Well, it gives me great joy to see it, because I'm very excited

to see, even in this condition, a model that is extraordinarily rare.

These were made by French prisoners of war, captured

and brought back over here to the UK

in the late 18th, early 19th century.

Now, a lot of them

were pressed into the French Navy from the port of Dieppe.

Dieppe was the centre for ivory carving in the whole of France.

So, these poor guys, ivory carvers, pressed into the French Navy,

went to battle, lost, put in the prison over here,

all they could do in order to feed themselves -

because in those days you went to prison, they just locked the door

and they didn't feed you -

you either had to have money, or you had to be good at gambling,

or you had to make something.

So, what these ivory carvers could do was make things -

not out of ivory, because they wouldn't have any ivory -

from the bones, the beef bones, from their plate.

Yes, I've read a little of that, yes.

And they used to take these into the market, have a little stall.

They were allowed to freely roam around.

They would sell them, get a few coins, buy some food

and be able to live for another week or two

and make another one of these.

And they're made all from bone.

And rigging, they didn't have any string, they used human hair.

Yes. So, it's not surprising that

the rigging goes and all the masts come down.

And the double interest, from my point of view,

they are absolutely accurate both above and below the water line.

Really?

They were not just made by people who just saw a ship and thought,

"I'll make a model,"

they are absolutely as a ship would've been.

So, the detail is really exceptional.

The other great thing about this is that he, and therefore you,

have kept all the bits and pieces.

So, in fact, this is the jigsaw of all jigsaws.

But somebody somewhere, and there are restorers,

could put this all back together again. Really?

Because you've got all the spars here.

You've got all the detailing here.

I mean, I know it's all on the floor now, but it's all there,

so you're not missing very much.

You've even got this lovely matchbox which has all the blocks.

I mean, look at the size of those. Tiny.

They're absolutely tiny, tiny blocks.

But somebody has carefully put all those away.

So, to a restorer, it's a big job, but not impossible.

Right, right.

In unrestored condition, we're properly talking about

a figure of between ?8,000 and ?10,000.

However, if you get it fully restored,

you're talking about a figure of...

between ?20,000 and ?25,000. Oh...

But how much to restore?

Yes. It might cost half of that to get it restored.

But get the quote first and then make a decision about it,

because it would be joyous, wouldn't it... Yes.

..to put it all back together and see it in its glory

and then, you know, maybe in time

you decide you want to sell it, but that's obviously your prerogative.

I think it's a joy, because it's all there.

You're not going to have to get anything remade,

apart from the rigging, and it is a genuine,

absolutely 100%, Napoleonic prisoner-of-war ship. It is.

Thank you. Made my day. Oh, thank you very much.

I'm very pleased. Thank you.

Who'd have thought it?

What's effectively a shipwreck

could have such an astonishing value.

We very much enjoyed our day here at Wentworth Woodhouse.

We've been rained on, the sun's come out,

we've been rained on again,

but we've carried on regardless.

That's the Antiques Roadshow spirit.

Until next time, bye-bye.

Who do you trust?

How do you know? How?

We all have secrets.

But sometimes, something can happen that leaves you no choice

but to reveal it -

to let the world see your secret self.