Antiques Roadshow Series 18 Episode 8 Alnwick Castle, Northumberland Part 2

[Music] hello and welcome once again to Northumberland for our second visit to an acausal home for more than 600 years of the Dukes of Northumberland [Music] during those six centuries and more The Dukes of Northumberland have been collectors collectors on the grand scale so what you find in anna castle now is the sum total of generations of the same family who've been able to acquire some of the great works of art of the periods through which they've lived well during the special program I'll be looking at some of those treasures with three of our red show experts clive farah her in the library has found a book of the Old Testament with unique Tudor connections from the many hundreds of pictures in the collection Peter Nahum has chosen one of particular appeal to him and Victoria Leatham will be looking at some of the exceptional objects in the red drawing-room and I'll be joining each of our experts a little later now inevitably during the making of the Antiques Roadshow we see many more items than we're possibly able to show you within the confines of individual programs so we're going to use this opportunity here at Anik to show you some of the hitherto unseen highlights of the series so far we begin early in our travels here ideally the beauty and grandeur of the cathedral I feel is matched by the beauty and the grandeur of this wonderful doll indeed a prize-winning doll here we have the certificate to prove it the doll won second prize for the best-dressed doll and here on the original box it says better scum wax doll now who was better scum well this mrs. Burtis comb was my husband's grandmother and she did all this wonderful work the the clothes are really quite extraordinary to unveil her so that people can see her in her beauty now isn't she fantastic now she's a poured wax doll an early wax doll probably dating from about 1860 1870 so a good deal earlier than the the date when the the prize was won almost certainly made in England the there were a lot of companies making poured wax dolls at that time here Rotty was one Montanaro was another and she's probably by Montanaro the hair has been inset into the head you can see it she's even got got a crown just as you would have with real hair and I think it is it is real hair rather than mohair so very nicely made she's in very good condition as well her little hands are undamaged the embroidery here on the the bonnet still fresh the satin ribbons which are always always fall apart it seemed as soon as I pick anything up doesn't happen with this one it's great I'm going to just turn her over and then here at the back the lovely again a lovely silk satin ribbon and beautifully dressed under clothes and so on I mean looking at how beautifully she's dressed here it seems extraordinary the Cheerilee won second prize yes well there is a story to this what's that parently the only reason she won second prize this post she had a full layered except for pair of nickels [Laughter] but she is in quite extraordinary condition and she ought to be insured is she insured now well she would have been quite an expensive dog when she was made and she's in she's an expensive doll now and I think at auction she would certainly be getting perhaps a thousand oh that's obvious thank you very much thank you and most straw daenerys it survived in critical condition apart from a little chip up there which is gone shake again yup now where was it made it was made in Germany funnily enough and probably for the Indian market it's exactly the kind of color scheme I went out to India some 20 years ago and this was exactly the sort of thing that I was seeing so it was probably made for the Indian market an elephants are very saleable in dates from about 1900 although it's relatively modern it's a very decorative thing and I would think somewhere around 800 2,000 pounds Wow all right thank you very much to lose where's it being weighed who kept it well I lost my brother enormous sister in the last year and the I had the job of clearing the house and I found in the loft I poured it out and I looked at it I said we'll we'll hang on to that you never know who painted whether they're worth well I think that's good advice well the artist is here on the plate George Moreland now George Morton was one of the most popular painters of his time at the end of the 18th century early part of the 19th century now it's not easy to see the real quality in this picture and obviously it needs to be cleaned but the certain things I'd like to point out if one looks at the face of the fishmonger I think he's important he's coming out of the beach too but to buy the catch round his face you can actually see that the painter sank it into the canvas and now the kind of tops of the weaver canvas showing through and it makes this face the a little bit block shape same with the with the with a woman selling the catch one can't quite make out the quality in the face and his arm is a bit difficult but you start to look into other parts of the painting you look at the fish here and the basket and then the dog here with the knight hairs on his front and nose and the painting would sail was a fantastic amount of vitality and I think on balance that he probably is by George morning but just what it's going to look like when it's cleaned up we just didn't know now have you any idea what it was worth though you obviously said that because he was good rather put it over put it on the tip no idea I would have thought that if it cleaned up very well and was restored it will probably be worth about two to two and a half thousand pounds and if it had been in very very good condition it would probably be worth four to five cents say it was worth kind of putting off the rafters and put into outside certainly was thank you anyway thank you very much for bringing it in thank you you know stylistically this is probably one of the most extraordinary clocks I've ever seen what sort of date do you believe it to be I thought about the middle of the last century 1850s well I thought about 1840 ish but looking at it more closely I think we've got something here that's quite a bit earlier let's open the back and have a little look it's an incredible sized movement to have in a case of this small size really it's taking up the whole thing which is a sign of great quality I'm glad to see you've put this pendulum retaining nut on just going to remove that and it parks in that little hole there but I'm not going to put it there for a moment I'm just going to move it and then we can see the signature reflected here Whitten 'm lombard street london while the doors open i see you've put a sort of bit of black paper here which is a slight shame now I have somebody else did Emily been nice to see the original silk covering that door which it is from the outside but attempt not on the inside there let's just examine the rest of the case groans of course ormolu English throughout obviously movement uncertainly case ambition and stylistically well what can we say it is almost straight out of that area of the Brighton Pavilion in absolutely hi Regency we've got oriental influence we've got Turkish influence and down here we've got French Empire influence dial wires very nicely done and beautiful engraving up here a bird over a basket of flowers and fruits lovely lovely lovely thing so certain things say to both of us that it's 1840 ish but I think a furniture man looking at all these influences would absolutely say hi Regency so I'm going to split the difference and say something around 1820 ish I think it is a very rare object yes and I'm going to hopefully surprise you by saying that if that came up to auction now I have every confidence that it would fetch at least 3000 pounds if not quite a bit more if I was retailing it at a good London antiques permit I'd be looking for around 5,000 pounds of this you've not done too badly or type I understand there are some 13,000 volumes in this great library altogether and you could really have chosen any one of them you've picked this particular one so there must be a very good reason absolutely it is the most exquisite poignant relic of Anne Boleyn Queen Anne Boleyn this is her book of Ecclesiastes it's an illuminated manuscript with the most fabulous illuminations dating from the time when she was actually Queen for three years a thousand days in which she actually reigned as Queen well the thing that strikes me at once about it is bearing in mind this is from the early part of the 16th century it's in such superb condition it is the paint is as fresh as it could possibly be this gothic black letter and these wonderful renewals illuminations which continue throughout some large some small it's just absolutely exquisite with the most wonderful coat of arms here Henry and Anne and his arms impaling her arms there that's the finest illumination of the lot I think and is that repeated on the cover there that is repeated in enamel on the front and the bottom and also I didn't if you see these little animals and birds here these were designed by Howe bine the original designs are in fact in the British Museum and he has put those on the corner to add add to it but what's the connection develop ah right well Henry Percy it was in fact at the court of Henry the 8th with his father and he saw Anne Boleyn and fell in love with her proposed to her and was apparently accepted and the King found out through one of his ministers and God Cardinal Wolsey to go along and try and say the King had preference he was still married of course at this time Percy initially said no but I think was prevailed on by his father and obviously by other ministers around at the time he lost the love of his life and she was in love with him and she was apparently end up with him but prepared to sacrifice herself to the king so it was ultimately the most tragic story of all she loses the love of her life and then soon afterwards loses her own life absolutely it's very very sad indeed I mean as this book shows with all these wonderful pieces of illumination the the prospects for their marriage were very great they wanted to produce a male heir and they only produced a female heir Queen Elizabeth the first one of the greatest of our monarchs and in the end he tired of her and she was convicted of adultery and and how did the book come to be a tonic has it been here since the 16th century no it hasn't this was collected by a descendent of Henry Percy and now obviously lodges here quite rightly as a memorial of that liaison beetles came over to Jersey to do a show in 1963 I think mental phonebox and phoned up the hotel and two other people staying with you yes and they probably said no we immediately went round to the hotel and just stood waited and what these stains on these pages are they tears or raindrops or well they're very nice indeed I think they probably bring around about a thousand or 1500 pounds from the group it's absolutely true just show because this is eat this is what it is it's the it's the it's the be-all and end-all for curing you naming not one but two you know what it is well when I saw Antony Pitt said cool than I think it is I think this is absolutely wonderful is exactly the sort of thing I go mad the vd/vt for mechanical massage and uses to the healthy facial massage hair health athletes and general tonic and it's used to users to the sick rheumatism constipation that's got me mind-boggling quick burst and UV beam beady vibrator and your your writers room if you go to an auction these sort of pieces will now be fetching forty or fifty sixty pounds and upwards and if I was going to say collect anything to the future this would be very high on my list the most thing about this is it tells us how it was used because we got strawberry leaves and strawberry flowers so filled with white red strawberries and a bowl for sugar and a jug for of the cream and I suppose what that before rosy flowers and probably straw prefer I don't know and splendid looking on a Victorian table do you feel it was gone with yourself Ivy used it we have used it but it takes an awful lot of storage which we've gotta have an awful lot of people to favor there was a great passion for these in mid Victorian England and normally they're in pottery made in the majolica wares of Minton and George oh and this one is very unusual being in porcelain and I must admit I've never seen one like it or was early as splendid and decorative it sums up the idea of making the design and the purpose together the images of decoration reflects the intention of the piece the Victorians love that I do any clues to who made it because there is something under I think that one there's mark mark that it's very hard to decipher that's when I I dunno because I grew up with this mark I was taught that by my father when I was 10 years old because I came in Worcester and this is royal Worcester it's their mark of a crown above a circle and little squiggles of the W and the dates of 1751 when they claim to be founded and that was the mark that they used in the 1860s and this is around about 1860 to 1865 it would have been costly when it was made probably not many of the survived and I suppose it's so easy to get the jug knocked off and broken but isn't it's lovely condition the I like the painting very much of these flowers the leaves and flowers have really they realistically done aren't they and I think they're gonna be painted by a great flower paint clip was d'accord David Bates he joined as an apprentice in the 1850s and went to Uster to learn to paint because in those days it was there any way you could get a grounding in fine art he's got some lovely colors that kind of bluey shade and the leaf really brings it to life doesn't it that's right and to life and quite valuable too because it's something so unusual I've got to put a price on it but I've never never having seen one I guess somewhere I supposed to reflect up yes well as I'm sure you know it's Japanese you know it's what we call in Maori porcelain characterized by this underglaze blue iron red and gilding and sometimes you get other enamels in there as well it was actually made at a Reacher inland and exported out through the port of Amaury largely by the Dutch and these large dishes you've also get enormous Liebig far Z's were meant to go around fireplaces and you find them in sets garnishes going up around the big five days and these were mounted on the wall in the 18th century they quite frequently turn them into tables like you've got here but this one which may well have been mounted as a table in the 18th century certainly lost its original table and we now have one which dates from about 1840 this is rosewood 1840 support we've got some nice details we've got this banded age which turns up on Japanese porcelain a great deal get it on him re you get it on kaki aim and the porcelain and then of course it was copied when it came over to Europe by the other factories pretty nice chelsey division info and so on but we've also got here some very nice but a butterfly flying here and these amusing crickets wandering about those boys that's what those are they break it now if we look at the back we might find something else yep here we have got a number of stilt marks this is where it was supporting in the kiln like that and then when it came out those stilts was stucked at the bottom they were knocked off and you leave these little marks this one that was to stop the bottom sagging because the Japanese couldn't control their porcelain as well as the Chinese we've got one ring on here which is much more characteristic of the Japanese dish whereas on a Chinese dish we'll find two ridges all right all in it all it's actually a jolly nice addition and table I think that would make probably make somewhere around three to four thousand pounds right right yes that's with with the staff with the staff does that I should have said it's made about 1830 1835 well that sort of Tyre provenance is that the chap was a colonel of the light Falls lawn chairs and under the Westminster oh yes we had founded in 1805 and disbanded in 1823 right generally speaking I suspect when used as a candelabrum it would be a lot the rows of candle holders will be up there that's right and then you have a little bit for them and then that comes out right well don't shower of flaked powder for they say you get a single candlestick there and then all the other candles around and then what happens is you unscrew this that in there absolutely this hum screws it's Sheffield plate of Sheffield plate yes window travel plate finish had 1840 and that screws in there and you would have six little dishes on a big central dish like this it's really what it'd be used for easy it would have a massive fruit arrangement pineapple grapes spilling over all that right in the center and then little bonbons in the dishes there is a coat of arms with a motto and I assume you know who that here well that's presumably them how old was he when he died well he was born in 1870 54 he died in a circus I know man yes well it was you know he liked nice things so there it is do you have it insured Georgia 750 pounds 750 yes right well I would go to more like three and a half thousand yes yes it's very saleable it's a wonderful object I know it's an absolute purgatorial thing to clean it's tough but it's I don't often suggest such a thing but you might think about having it really once properly clean and then and then completely lacquered continues cleaning your table you'll peel all the plate off anywhere it's doing it like this it look to keep for a long long time and then you know you could use it easily if they have your fruit in it or you can have it as a candle and it will be marvelous because it would look it would look so much better really clean well we're standing in front of one of the greatest portraits in the history of English painting it's extraordinary that you say that because we're a room surrounded by portraits by Sir Peter Lee Lee they're a couple of Van Dyke's there there are four kind of letters in this room why did you single out this one to begin with William Dobson was the first Englishman to paint English men there is a brutal honesty in this planting which you simply do not find in the Flemish artists who dominated British portrait painting at this time for instance on the other side of the fireplaces of a Van Dyck you see in this Van Dyck typical foppish mannerisms given to the sitters van even Van Dyck could not escape this but what was the motivation behind the painting do we know well we had to think of when it was painted it was either painted in 1645 or 1646 Civil War right in the middle of the Civil War 1645 King Charles's mutas caught Oxford his courtiers are cramped into this small town at least three men are courtiers and these three men are courtiers there is immense tension Cromwell is closing in it's do or die time it's all or nothing time and beneath these sweaty real brows we feel that tension that ax ax T and I'll say it is fascinating to have a picture described in the way that you do because you can see in their eyes their eyes the life has gone out of their eyes absolutely and so we should come to the sitter's I suppose yes who are they well in the center we have a brutally honest portrait of William Dobson himself on the Left we have Nicolas Lanny he was master of the Kings music and on the right we have a Charles choral there was William Dobson's youngest patron now that's another intriguing element in the picture wide as cultural with his arm around the artist appear to be almost defending him against the man in the white satin and the man in white satin' Nicholas linear for a start is a collector of old master drawings and in his hand he holds an old master drawing it is actually of a nude woman and a cupid he represents pleasure it's a Charles Coral on the other hand has an austere black costume he represents restraint he is restraining his friend and we have to remember this painting is painted by Dobson and Dobson depicts himself he's already going he's already gone he is out of control and he brutally depicts himself in this manner so it's as if Cottrill is warning him that times are changing forever times have changed they've gone but he's saying look hold on there is a discipline we might get through but Dobson is saying I didn't think I'm gonna make it and nor did he he died aged 35 in 1646 so that he is predicting almost his slide down to oblivion it's for this reason I feel that this picture ultimately is a tragedy but the whole point is that we today can touch these people in all the other pictures in this room we don't really relate to them this picture we can relate to whatever age were in look at that that is absolutely wonderful about character you can't help a very sorry for it can you dress to please clothes sitting on a camel in the middle of the ocean in yes yes I know it must be extraordinarily hot I think well I do what you got her I've got him oh no there's a wonderful old whiskery James do you see him yes good look at the ruins look at the obelisks why do you think these are all it's got to be that yes absolutely what do you think they're worth 150 200 pounds it depends who they are it depends so I assume you've had a doll in your life to put in this dolls bed well funnily enough my mother would never let me play with it it was kept religiously in the Attic and it wasn't until I had children of my own that I allowed them to use it and and made the I don't know it's strange because it was made for her do cut the little pillows oh we've got a piece of CMC that's my daughter's two initials you mean you made that as well yeah that's one that I've done it on old linen well this this type of a late 19th century dolls bed certainly with the old paneling I can see it might make as much as four six hundred pounds over here yes good good on another note this tell me about this well I then I don't know what the background of that is at all but it's I've had it all my life and my my parents had it about it as far as I know it's got no history that's rather a shame because for me it's that there's something wonderful about this I love the shape of it it is it is 1750 it's midday 1750 yes and it's lovely to have this heart in the middle this is carved lovingly probably for a grandchild or a daughter and these are difficult to find because normally they're not into perfect condition because they didn't use because it's a rocker we're talking about quite a lot of money if you were to find it and at auction I can see this making probably somewhere in the region of a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds really it's not interested yeah yes well they were ready bought by my grandfather and to send it through the family since noon yeah so you know no history I know well there's actually two good examples of Chinese ceramics from different parts of China this one is the earlier of the two this is a is a piece of Saladin it's made at a place called Longquan in czech en provence and it's an example of other traditions dying out when this is made this is made in the early part of the Ming Dynasty probably in the late 15th century it's very very heavy this is a massively potted piece and it's what is called a blossom vars or am a ping and it's all the decoration here done in these zones the main band is peony and it's again it's gouged away it's carved rather than sort of in size like a surgeon's knife so you can see how it's got these channels with the glaze collects but it's a good example because it's it's as it's all there I think that's all in reasonable order except for this bit down here if you can see see the difference in the crackle here it's suddenly gone opaque yeah these lines really essentially this is a restoration so from being worth maybe three four or five thousand pounds it's down to about maybe a thousand fifteen hundred pounds of this piece whereas if I may put that to one side here we wanted this this is in fact that was Saladin this is porcelain this is a quite fine example our poster made at jingdezhen where most blue and white was made almost all Chinese blue and white is made and you can see it's very very white material has got a very very thin glaze and it's painted in this very beautiful cobalt cobalt varies in color enormously every period you can tell what period is from the the tonality this one is brilliant you can see it's got two dragons on it this is just one chasing the flaming pearl up here a dragon emerging from the wave and there he is looking quite ferocious but really benign it's a lovely object and I'd imagine this is worth in the region of about two thousand maybe three thousand pounds well Vicki it's difficult in a room like this red drawing-room to know what not to talk about we could talk about the chandelier we could talk about the mirror we could talk about the porcelain we could talk about the Renaissance pictures there's just so much for choice it really is a great parade room probably the most important things in the room however are the pair of cabinets on either side of the fireplace they were brought here in 1824 by the third Duke who paid a phenomenal two thousand guineas for them which was a great deal of money at the time but nothing compared to their their current width so absolutely I mean oh the current worth is incalculable because they are the only great baroque cabinets of this type in the world today and it's only close-up that you realize that all of that decoration that's subtlety all been achieved in stone I know it's quite phenomenal what they did and the carcass of the thing is is obviously timber but when you look at the thickness of the doors it gives you some idea of what they were actually dealing with the physical carpets of the piece is rubbish yes if you look at a piece like this from behind it's orange boxes it's just junk yes all of it was parade furniture it was made to be seen from the front and nobody's bothered at how it was constructed but they because the things were so heavy the panels were so heavy of the hard Stone's themselves they had to make them onto timber and using very very thick doors like we've got here and what we've got here is a man who was basically trained as a metalworker cook she came to France not as a hard stone in layer but he came as a metal worker he was a funder he was a man who knew how to cast bronze how to gild it and how to get the best details and the finest details out of a piece of metal and he obviously couldn't resist when it came to this putting these little tiny fleur-de-lis decorations on the inside where they would practically never be seen I mean that's hardly ever been opened you can see it's not faded at all you need the overall condition is miraculous when you bear in mind these are 17th century pieces but there is some damages if there is a little bit of damage I mean this is inevitable especially when you're gonna be shipping things like this from one side or the channel to the other you're bound to get not gonna bruise here and there what we've got here is an interesting actually it's actually enables us to see how the piece is constructed into the the base black marble the slate you have got a hole here dug with an instrument into which they will set their cornelian like we've got here this lovely little cornelian probably would have been a little cherry set into that so it would have been half buried rather like an iceberg with half of it below the level of the water half of it would have been inserted into the piece of furniture just with glue and do we know what happened to coochie well he was very successful while the King was was still going strong I mean basically near the 14th established with the help of Colbert this marvelous series of workshops at the Goblin Factory in Paris but when the King ran out of money which inevitably happens to Kings if they go this sort of route eventually all these workshops gradually sort of tailed off and people definitely to get other jobs elsewhere and kuchi we think died in Paris in about 1705 and what happened to the other cabinets mean presumably he made dozens of them in many existent no this is this is extra these are two that we know to have been made by him all the others ended up in the Louvre stored and eventually were broken up for the hard stone specimens which is so sad they were literally hacked to bits wrecked and people just took out the little pieces of lapis and cornelian and use them for displays now of course we would never in any circumstances see anything like this on a road show but we would occasionally find pennants because the panels do are collectible in their own right oh of course they are and they do crop up from time to time and the wonderful thing is that they when they do come just little pieces perhaps all right they're expensive but you have the impression that what you're doing is taking part in a collecting habit which goes back to France why permeate the first King of France ready to go into this this sort of work even back to the Romans who used to inlay hard stones into panels and so it would give whoever that was able lucky enough to collect or to buy that's just a single panel a feeling that they were taking the hand of history and and with all those people in the past have had such pleasure after purakh pieces of furniture like this have you ever heard of Thomas Sidney Cooper and no not very much actually well he'd live for 99 years was probably except the land to one of the great great painters of cows and sheep and of course that's what he was best known for but this is very early if you look very carefully with the magnifying glass and I've got to learn characters you can see TS Cuba 1837 now he was in his early 30s when he painted this and so in a way it's got a rather sort of more precise style and perhaps he had later on he trained in Belgium with an artist called verba Kevin and then came back to England and and did slowly these pictures of domestic animals and I think he's a great technician again you can see the quality of both the cow the goat and the kid beneath I mean I think it's superb quality you know it's like be in the field exactly I mean I love it and I like that slightly moody sky should we look at the other one now it's not quite a pair is it Elaine bull in an in a field a game probably painted in Kent this one signed slightly different place just here just underneath this little scratch which which is rather sad it's probably worth just getting that restored and this says TS Cooper 1847 I think I think he must have been a tremendous salesman Cooper I've seen letters he's written to various clients and he always says this is the best picture I painted and he painted hundreds pictures neill it for 99 years and I mean he must paint up to a day sometimes I mean he made to pay he was very prolific artist maybe slightly exaggerated certainly a prolific painter have you ever had them in charge or values I think I think they were insured about 10 years ago what sort of price did you think oh can you remember no I actually don't know because my dad did it right I think that one's a little bit more interesting but they're very very very charming I mean the prices for Cooper vary considerably and the very very large ones can make I mean hundreds thousands of pounds I would say something like these they're not quite a pair but these two I'm an insurer for ten thousand well we've got a set of three wonderful Darby porcelain plates here painted by the artist George complan and they date from the end of the 18th century circa 1790 um how long have you have them for and they've been in the family as long as I can remember because they would originally have been part of a dessert service one can see that clearly from the pattern number on the reverse of the of the plate with the Darby marking puce and pattern number one five nine and I have seen other plates from this service George complan he was a Frenchman who came over to work in London and he decorated little enamel boxes in London very very fine quality painting and he left London in around 1789 and went to the Darby factory and worked there and that was really the golden era of the Darby factory it's where they produced their best work the factory managed to get together a group of very fine artists and compen was really one of their leading artists and you can see from from each of the plates here at the incredible fine quality and really his trademark which is a little nest of eggs just here in the center and you can see that and also birds in flight or perched on branches and it's incredibly detailed work as you can imagine do you like them did I really love them yeah yeah they're very fond of them and it's really a wonderful it's a wonderful service and each plate would be worth certainly between a thousand and fifteen hundred pounds and so the three of them together would be around three to five thousand pounds but they're extremely desirable and complan is one of the most sought after artists of that Darby golden you know sort of great temptation to actually recline here as this offseason have a have a quiet snooze very comfortable yes it is it's a new cover up yeah yes and my wife I posted it crow recently did she do the stuffing as well no it's the original horse I mean I'm just feeling there's a rolled edge there very difficult to do babysit that well done jolly different um very stylish piece yes very stylish I like these columns at the side with the sort of twist and then those studs round I know it's very very nice and typical of that period beautiful quality the veneers are lovely the edges are sharp and as I say very stylish as a daybed or as event but of course what we're actually sitting on is an ottoman that's right right let's have a look at it there and lo and behold look those hinges are absolutely wonderful great quality throughout great quality for that and we do have a makers name here Hodgdon Manchester and in a number that's the pattern number a number of the of the item itself which gives us a date which ties in very nicely browned about 1880 so - how about that with your family does that match him well it belongs to my great-grandmother so that would probably fit in quite well well we allow 30 years per generation that sit back bounty hunter we allow 30 years of generation she would have probably bought it new one gets an idea it doesn't look as if it's being moved around a lot as I say it's in very good conditions jolly good I've never actually seen an ottoman with with an IFFT lives with one end on which to requires we're back where we started valuation very different have you had it valued we're an ordinary ottoman with Turkey covering on it Turkey work cover on it or velvet as they do a lot of them now certainly if their period with those sort of fittings on will make between eight hundred four thousand pounds this one really ought to be 2,000 pounds of insurance all right first of all what is it it's not when you pick it up it's not immediate what it is but what the giveaway is is actually the name on the front which is Charles Wheatstone our Wheatstone was one of those nineteenth-century inventors very clever industrious person he had full of ideas one of his was to actually construct this it's a toy type of mouth although it's best way to describe it I'll give you a quick demonstration but I'm not a musician so it probably was sound terrible [Music] and if you want to change rather than a mouth organ where is you know you remove your your lips up and down the actual key to actually change key you just to press the ivory keys on either side now just see if we can actually open up the back and see it whoops it comes apart and inside you can see that the little ivory knobs on the side just open and close the reeds and as you depress them so they open and close what's extraordinary about it this is the first free reed instrument ever made in what the West at all there were instruments known in the Far East but this is the actual first free reed instrument made in the West so as a musical Lisbon it's very important so not only will this appeal to somebody who's who likes early and unusual musical instruments to the person who is concerned about technology in the 19th century again it's a very very rare piece how long have you had it well my father bought it probably about 40 years ago he was a watchmaker he knew his rear it probably would be a house seal in this area and got attacked what's it worth difficult that they turn up so infrequently it's difficult of a precise value on it I would guess maybe roundabout four thousand pounds what but I think that's not expensive because I think it's such a such a pretty important piece well I very much hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the hitherto unseen highlights of the series so far and indeed a few of the treasures of anak in a few weeks time I'll be showing

Channel: UK VHS Archive

Views: 59,153

Rating: 4.8022814 out of 5

Keywords: Antiques Roadshow UK, Antiques Roadshow, Antiques Roadshow Series 18, Rare Antiques, Hugh Scully, BBC, BBC 1, VHS, 50fps

Id: 40Oceifnzpg

Length: 42min 53sec (2573 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 10 2018