Antiques Roadshow guest disagrees with expert’s eye-watering five figure valuation of ‘priceless’ item

An Antiques Roadshow guest took issue with an expert’s huge five-figure valuation for a 100-year-old item, labeling the item as ‘priceless’.

The guest presented a portrait bust carved by her mother and was impressed by expert judge Ronnie Archer-Morgan.

He said: ‘I absolutely love this portrait bust. I think it’s a great, skilled piece of work. I mean, it’s a very beautiful sculpture. You have to tell me everything about this.”

Explaining the story behind the striking artwork, the guest replied: ‘It was carved from teak (wood) by my mother when she was teaching at a school in South Africa around 1925, she was there for quite a few years.

‘She was there as a young woman of about 23 years old to set up a school for sculpture and model making at the invitation of the director of the Slade School of Art in London.’

The guest presented a portrait bust carved by her mother, surprising expert judge Ronnie Archer-Morgan

Apparently impressed, Ronnie replied: ‘Slade was the epicenter of art at the time. She would have studied all the greats to come up with this. She is a truly brilliant sculptor.

Antiques Roadshow expert Ronnie praised the guest’s mother, who was called Margaret and known as Peggy.

He predicted that ‘people would go crazy’ for the piece and said the item could fetch between £5,000 and £10,000 if put up for sale at auction.

However, the guest immediately suggested that the statue was “priceless” and belonged in a museum instead of being sold.

She said: ‘I think it’s priceless in its own way to be honest’ and added: ‘I don’t think it’s a household piece, it should be in the public domain’.

Although Ronnie and the guest seemed to disagree on the item’s potential value, the former still praised its skillful crafting, adding: ‘This is overloaded with suppressed energy and power that sounds like an oxymoron . But she must have been with the babysitter, just to get to know him and try to understand him, get into his head and feel who he was.

“We must remember that this happened in South Africa at a time when people who look like him lived in a world of oppression. This is the Phoenix rising from the ashes of those terrible times.”

He continued, “We still have the excellence of your mother, here in this image. I love the way she did his tight curls on his head; she left what we call the ad marks the texture of his hair.”

Ronnie gave his thoughts on the piece, saying, “I absolutely love this portrait bust. I think it’s a great, skilled piece of work. I mean, it’s a very beautiful sculpture’

The guest immediately suggested that the statue was “priceless” and belonged in a museum instead of being sold