Antiques Roadshow UK Series 13 Episode 9 Valletta, Malta

Nations the Romans the Arabs the Normans the Turks the Spanish the French and the British have at various times in their history regarded this stretch of water as the key to power and influence in the Mediterranean and as a direct result of that Grand Harbor the letter has by no means always been as serene and peaceful as it is today in the 16th century it was the Turks who wanted to add Malta to the vast Ottoman Empire but the people of the island had other ideas and Valletta became the most heavily fortified city in Europe the siege of 1565 was one of the great turning points of history the victory of Christianity over Islam in the western Mediterranean so Malta has remained for nearly 2,000 years a bastion of Catholic belief the second great siege took place in world war ii when the Axis powers of Germany and Italy tried in vain to bomb Malta into submission to mark its heroic defence only British cause George the sixth honoured mortar with the George Cross the islands warring days are hopefully now over for good and the Maltese are engaged in the more peaceful pursuit of tourism at which they'd been very successful each year some 800,000 visitors come here more than half of them from Britain with whom Malta has had a special relationship for nearly 200 years now you can't possibly come to Malta without mention of the Knights of st. John and this hospital they built here in Valletta which is our home for today's program this incredible hall is the great ward of the Knights Hospital their main purpose in life was the care of the sick and the wounded it's no less than 170 yards from one end to the other it was completed in 1666 and in its time as an infirmary treated countless thousands of people many of whom of course were British soldiers sailors and airmen who served here in Malta now until recently there was nothing beyond this door but an open courtyard well now it's been covered over provided with some raked seating a central stage area on two levels so it's absolutely ideal for our purposes we have with us a particularly strong team of experts from Britain including one newcomer on pictures Josephine puts Allen Howard so a warm welcome to her it's been realized let's now join our experts with the people of Malta it's a very very early figurine of a goddess in the terracotta made I suppose originally in rows what was it found here in Malta I managed to buy from a local antique shop oh so it's bought locally it okay I suppose in date you don't to be and I think it is about the fifth century BC what is that 400 years old it's a long long time ago is then it's in a lovely soft terracotta body at oranjee play with very typical vent holes the holes for the gases to come out too in the firing otherwise a hollow figurine would explode unless it has big holes for the gas and and it represents the mother goddess and I suppose it's so wonderfully calm and serene isn't it as it sits there unfortunately damage sometimes these things are found perfect and of course can be quite a lot of money what did you pay for it well I paid 10 pounds 10 pounds and that was about 20 years ago it seems ridiculously cheap or something the same people who have been damaged in English terms I suppose was looking at something worth a hundred and forty hundred fifty-pound even with the damage because it looks so serene well this is what we call a baccarat which is a cow in fact it looks like a horse to me that's wrong but but right it's cow this was passed on to me by my mother and to my mother by my grandfather and my grandfather got it from his mother and we don't know anything further than that it's used to it was used to heat up the stool keep the skin warm and it was brought to take on the table where the food was presented what is unusual I think about this one I mean it's a very old shape what we've got here it's almost a prehistoric shape many people have been making clay vessels like this for a very very long time but the unusual thing about this one is that it's actually glazed we don't often find on these particular pots and I think the reason for that is this was not actually what they cook today this is what they brought it to the table that's a presentation yes it was a presentation that's why it's back much more handsome than most ok can I take the lid off certainly he's wonderful inside and I think that colour we've got in there it just looks for all the world like a flower pot yes and that's exactly what it is of course a flower pot clay it was the commonly occurring material very porous very good at keeping things cold as well as keeping things all right and the glaze has trickled down on the inside they're giving that nice contrast now you would have got your rabbit stew in there you would have got a hole read it in there's several homework I would say yes at least two or three rabbits if it was a large family oh yeah any other kind of stew but rabbits do is a very popular actually yes it's quite difficult to date this fellow because they have been around for such a long time but they can do Raley's look at the costumes we've got here funnily enough in Japanese ceramics you get a marvelous model of a drunk Dutchman sitting astride a barrel and this is very much like a drunk Dutchman sitting astride a barrel he's got his try for cattle he's got his hand up holding onto the Hat almost as though it's gonna fall off or he's gonna fall off one or the other sadly he lost his arm but I would think that this chap round about 1714 1750 it's good it's also hard for us to value something like this because it's not an object that would come up Mohammadi in an English sale room so it's difficult to to judge but I would think that if it did appear on the market somebody would be so tickled by it but they would be quite happy to pay over three four thousand pounds for its English money a visit is a superb object I think that though these are the news for the Toronto no no absolutely originals I'm quite happy with it quite happy with those little silver mounts to the drawers and then the central compartment pulls out as it should sometimes enclosed by doors sometimes left plain like that I agree mitered corner slips around the frame of each stall over these lovely little hinges it suits me now here you are you see you've got the little studs are blackened in there all perfectly original as I say even 30 40 years ago quite an expensive and sought-after obviously now this of course is the thing that makes it unique and rare small Indian ivory and tortoiseshell cabinet mentioned in an inventory dated 1787 oh well that ties up with the Degas net it wasn't very old when he was mentioned from the Colleran house sale 1897 in Scotland or this one assumed Rory made in England are made in India over to Scotland over to Malta maybe it was you know English family living in India you know it's more than like more than that but there are so many various reasons why these things have travelled all over the world but to end up here is just amazing very very difficult to value as an object in Malta all I can really tell you is how much it would make if it were to tear turn up in a good sale or in a collection in England and I think today such of these with that provenance which does make earth does make a difference in between ten and twelve thousand pounds now the label inside as you can see says there's Stradivarius yes now that name of course is a very important and very famous man unfortunately he did not make this because his violins have been copied constantly and remade in later periods and later makers have often put the label it to imply that it is a quality Stradivarius violin and if you look on the label it says also usually made in Czechoslovakia in those days so those various went in Czechoslovakia in that area there was nothing in another you know well this violin is not is not that old because Czechoslovakia only came to being as a country after the first world war and a wonderful piece of transfer curriculum the idea of trip down the Rhine of the brand this was did this come out [Music] [Music] these are just a quick word about valuations the local currency is of course the Maltese town which is worth approximately twice as much as the pound sterling now in order to avoid any confusion we've decided today to provide most of the valuations in English Pounds in pound sterling occasionally however you'll hear reference to the Maltese currency and that's simply because sometimes an individual item might perhaps be worth more on the local market here in Malta than it would be in England but on the whole valuations in pound sterling one of the common pieces of Maltese silver that one finds out of these super sugar boxes are the Maltese particularly fond of silver they have a sweet tooth yes what happened to the top of this one you might not believe this but we have a twelve year old cat who nibbles at everything our Father touches you know and she nibbles at that nice have toothless to do well this is quite a this is quite a pretty violent and eye I don't think there any marks on it at all so I would say that this is Jasper with 19th century one with a fairly fairly cool sorting embossing but interesting but this on the other hand I find a lot more interesting because it's far superior in qualities of the first one and it also has Maltese hallmarks which are quite identifiable and the mark on this side the MC is the maker's mark of Michele calejo who was working about 1820 and the letter here it's an AR and that's quite an interesting story because they used three letters F R and M the French representing French standard silver which was the highest the are representing the Roman standard a silver or the Italian standard for silver which was a little below the sterling standard and the Maltese standard I'm sorry to tell you was the lowest of the lot at about just a 825 parts in a thousand it's a very attractive piece with his octagonal faceting around the top the chains the lion's head and this very very decorative finial which I supposed upcyclers bouquet of cabbages attractive indeed it has been in your family for long time good years of junk to my grandfather yes so it's not something that you've acquired recently no no well pieces of this quality are now quite scarce and they were often very keen collected water so do you have the address of any of this no but I think that if this would come on to the market today it would probably fetch at least a thousand pounds sterling maybe as much as 1,500 and probably the Donald I see before as I can tell the history of motor is very much summed up in its portraiture of which I believe this is a fascinating example Walter is of course of great interest because of its naval history and its ports and this is a portrait of a navigator now happily the artist has left behind a lot of hints in which to help us here we have a navigational compass and here we have a pair of dividers used for measuring on his chart and he's obviously pointing to what one presumes to be the boat on which he was a navigator now here which i think is very interesting is a chart of Malta and Gozo itself which is rather fascinating which confirms the in the fact that it is definitely a Maltese portrait now not only do we know its other navigator but we actually know his name because right down here we've got all the details of the sitter and when he was born where he came from now I see that his name here it says Domenico Trebizond and was he a member of your family he was an old friend of our family so the story goes that the first tourism that came to Malta he came from Venice because the Travis on three faces that means trade on is a family from Venice and he came to Malta and as you said he came around 1755 yes yes luckily we can actually date the portrait yes 1755 and it tells us that the allah sadly died on the rocks i seen nearly show yeti so this is this is Marvis that we've got all these details unfortunately he's not the most handsome of men but I think it's a fascinating portrait and of great interests locally and therefore I think it would be worth in the region of five hundred pounds sterling to know who this gentleman is well we seem to think it belongs to the Medici he's a member of the Medici family well I think that's absolutely right because here in the middle you have the magic involved it's a little little balls here har they are maybe and it is certainly for looking at a very important person you can see that because he's wearing what's called a parade armor buried armor not at our Mo's any use for battle but with the nobility put on on on this with a Sunday best and and they went around town wearing this very offensive stuff I say it was no use of a battle because in battle or you don't want your armor too bumpy and have bits that Spears and needs to get caught in but there was this great tradition of wearing for public suits of armor that were all worked all they were just like this now the reason we know is isn't it he's an important man because this is the badge and collar of the order of the Golden Fleece one of the Supreme European orders of chivalry and another bit of Medici evidence is down here we have two recumbent figures of night and day which are inspired by the Michelangelo figures in the Medici Chapel in Florence so here we have a bronze portrait of an important Medici most probably a Grand Duke of Tuscany and dating from the late 16th or 1580s that sort of 1580 1610 I would now I did don't know which one is going to be but it is a fine bronze and I would expect that the bronze was done in his lifetime but the portraits of people are generally done in their lifetime I see no reason to suppose that it is not a later in sixteenth-century of rocks and as such it could be very valuable well be worth 10,000 pound British pounds 5000 Maltese or more it does the quite a lot of work on it and those there does need to like a bar the 11th Stradivarius I've seen today I'm convinced that members of the well letter Philharmonic have been making their way in today because I've seen more violence live today the last time I saw as many violins would probably be in Chelmsford in Essex a few years ago so you have a very strong similarity I think the letter should be twinned with Chelmsford well it's a genuine Roman Emperor about two thousand years old where did you come by it readjust their Harriet's for a moment grandfather so it's was grandfather passed on down to you you know how he came by you know just put it in the net he was speaking he's the fisherman yeah off Moltar was this the north any area is that some fools bay sort of the around there around some paul's bay area so tipped off a Roman ship I suppose traveling around the Mediterranean somewhere around about two thousand years ago that's almost about the types of Paul that it's incredible to think that possibly I mean he might've seen such a piece at his lifetime but certainly in the right shape the right body see all the throwing lines which are absolutely right for a hand thrown Roman am from about that period bringing oil or something around the Mediterranean there it lies covered with these wonderful little sea in Co stations except it degrades I suppose they dig disturbs it's going to be fairly three or four hundred pounds to or hundred or something like that maltese bones in that kind of arrayed which is not very great but it's absolutely genuine as right as rain and this also is yours as if that bat looks terribly like an ancient Greek dish but but it is a complete phony fake have is made to look like this it's been scrapped all that's scratching on it is deliberate scratching to make it locations you know it's like my face locator is deliberately aged and this is row as this green Emperor is right very good quality he's very bright and it's a nice condition oh it's only part of course he's not really old yeah a little bit there but it doesn't surprise me in fact to find a washer this time here in Malta and and how is that what each part of the world had its own particular styles and watches were made in Switzerland and in England which are the main centres of production for export to particular countries the Chinese for instance night-watches with center seconds and enamel cases but the Mediterranean companies the Turkish particular Turkey liked watches which were decorated with natural materials and this is in fact completely covered in pickle pave pearl work is a half split natural pearls that split in half graduated sizes and they're set into small gold settings I think if we turn it over the other side you'll see just how work has been carried out here are they meaning that you cannot see how it's set pave meaning paved literally like a pavement there's absolutely no space between is completely said here they've actually not only graduated them but they set them in radial lines it's almost like the inside of an oyster shell yes that's what I thought looks like a shell and if we open it up I'm quite sure we're gonna find the name of a Swiss make up and so on the DA actually it's quite a piece of work because that dial would be only perhaps half a millimeter or less in thickness and they've had to set the pearls in they're not actually do there anything yes cut into the settings and campaigned over [Music] we got Malini bounce and Monier they're quite a famous company the three of them got into partnership I think in about 8 out of 15 to 20 before that Whitney was just about and mr. Moyer we're all working on their own account and they specialized in elaborate watches I don't even watches like this but also watch the musical limits specifically a lot of them came down to Turkey and I would think this watch got to malta throat area so we have not ended watch but those are the key and they have nine times out of ten the key is not lost extraordinary that it's stayed with it value-wise I would have to say something of the order of 5 to 6,000 pounds Terry that's nice to know I've seen so many wonderful things in motility I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see an absolutely - absolutely fabulous objects come in and they could both of them bid English this wonderful late 17th century dish could just as easily be English as Maltese could be have been made by Paul de la Marie and so these have been inherited to us this was made by vincenzo menville in about 1750 and also bears their hallmarks of Grandmaster Carafa yes and the arms are those of the Escobar's and taberna family in the case of this wonderful you are they big solid super piece of Huguenots silver this has no makers mark it could maybe maybe to laminate Artforum Altius holiday ran this up during the fortnight that he was here this has the asset market of the Grandmaster paralysis was registered in 1697 this is about that period the arms extremely finely engraved we can't consider them as a pair however because they're not a pair I think this probably worked in the order of 30,000 pounds I'll be you are [Music] the you are I think warned the fourteen fifty thousand Oh God it is absolutely wonderful thankfully the date of it and its proper description I believe would be transitional that is a mid 18th century it has the quality which which we see running through maltese furniture never better than this this is absolutely wonderful and look why I'd like about it is you've got marquetry and partnership marquetry panels here all the foliat work is really marketing these are two different colored woods one transposed interspersed with another and applied in a panel the parquetry done totally differently each section cut separately and put one against another so you build up geometric patterns interspersed with strap work and then these lovely panels of Market River using olive red maple some cherry chestnut Oh a huge variety of looks wonderful and when new probably not as attractive as it is now because this has gone this round mellow gold color when new bright greens and reds would have been seen here probably not to our taste so much and it's faded a jazz ballad no handles a luxury piece really rather more for display than household use and I think of all if we get back these corners these columns have miniature versions of parquetry in the same panel and can write the way down beautiful convex molding and then more quality to put that work on the feet now you've seen ordinary come out they might have a lot of veneer a lot of marketing but the fitra was playing this one they spared nothing the man who made this look at the ends wonderful cartouche and then the back feet are also veneer it's an aristocrat rupees it is absolutely splendid I'm sad it's so nice to see a piece of furniture one can indeed get enthusiastic but now I must ask you how do you come by it what is the story so it's for the first time at an auction say about a year ago and they're not very interested about it but as they're always making such a fuss right we wondered what was so special about it right so we came across as a month after an antique dealer they didn't look like this when he was really dark it was very dry actual apology doctor and he wouldn't sell it to us he said to us as for his daughters and then after coming and going for about five or six times he decided to let us happen but the profit of course of course game but so you're fortunate a piece like this today I can only tell you in England what it would make it England yes if you were to move there and you wanted to replace this chest it's common you would have to give somewhere in the region forty thousand pounds sterling mister so now how does that tie up with watching hey it's fun this dance such a difference they sell for around about again about five or ten cards there is actually in Britain is a flat iron society seriously there is the people who collect irons and they have a society this is wonderful this is a really nice piece of Chinese porcelain it's about seventeen twenty seven thirty days underglaze blue with iron red which makes it sort of Amaury Japanese style and this dotty bird sort of one leg Ania is terrific but what's unusual about it is this which I've never seen before and I've absolutely no idea what it means why it's there it's almost like a Japanese more than badge but it clearly isn't it's just possible that it was made for a European family and that is supposed to be some it's in good condition and I love it nicest things I've seen today the colors are fabulous I'm in love there's just this touch of green and then it's jostle and they've left a lot of white porcelain changes it was nice I think that's probably worth in the region of three to four hundred pounds English and the brush I have noticed something about the multi so you never throw anything away do you I mean yes it is dated look at that the pure pure bristles 1897 well we leave the main hall of the Mediterranean Conference Center just for a moment for this week's Radio Times competition but first the answer to last week's question if you remember the question was what would this Chelsea cabbage-leaf bow be worth at auction today and the answer is four thousand pounds so to this week's competition object and here it is a mile occur drug jaw it's known as a bomba or a bomb bulla and it's particularly appropriate to Malta because it was actually used here in this hospital by the Knights of st. John in the 17th century now my Yola car is a term given to this colorful painted pottery made in Italy from the 15th to the 17th centuries it's called mile occur in Italy it's known in Britain and Holland as Delft and in France and Germany as finals basically it's an earthenware body decorated in these very colorful pigments and then the whole thing overlaid in tin glaze this particular jar was used for dry drugs things like powder crushed roots and all sorts of other natural remedies now Myo Locker was made in several factories in both Italy and Sicily from the late Middle Ages onwards and the experts are able to identify it reasonably easily because each individual town each factory had its own style of decoration in this case perhaps a rather unusual one for Italian maiolica decorated here with an image of San George and the dragon now we know that this particular piece actually came from a Sicilian factory and it was brought over here to malta as part of the regular trade between the two islands still going on indeed they're separated by only 60 miles of the Mediterranean and so to the question in which Sicilian town was this drug jar made now we don't exactly expect you to know that off the top of your head I certainly didn't but you can get a few hints from next week's Radio Times which is published on Tuesday they'll even give you a range of suggested answers together with more details of the competition and then your entry needs to be in the post and addressed to the Radio Times please not Antiques Roadshow by next Saturday and then you'll stand a chance of winning a voucher which you can then spend on antiques of your own choice and I can assure you the voucher is very worthwhile indeed so there'll be another competition object next week in the meantime let's rejoin our experts for the people of Malta well I never expected to see anything like this in Malta and obviously you like combination weapons yes now let's take them one at a time here's a combination pistol retailed by jones of liverpool now we have a knuckle duster weapon now we have a six-shot pistol and now we have a dagger so he's he's prepared for all contingencies any incidental e it's as you know which SAP in fire weapon so this would place it around about 1865 and then we come to a most unusual weapon it's a rising block for shot percussion pocket pistol I just demonstrate it here there we go I think is a little bit worn isn't it the actions a little bit worn and there she goes incredible but this is the most interesting one of all now this is a pin fire harmonica pistol in the action it traverses from right to left and then we have a spare magazine and there you see we load the pinfire cartridge it in lock them in and that's all ready to use I did notice that all the serial numbers belong so this actual spare magazine really belongs to the pistol the combination pinfire revolver that would sell for about 400 pounds today likewise this is a little bit worn in the action but nevertheless another 400 pound item but the harmonica pistol with the spare magazine that's got to be something like six to eight hundred pound they used to put the label in to indicate quality but it didn't mean that it was what it was it wasn't what he claimed to be from from a value IRA for well it would be less than a hundred at the moment in their own so did you say very much very very much less yes we're being polite well she was immensely long legs he had to be a girl yes French I'm sure he's right because the hair started actually finishes it almost got those ordinarily job those yes I'd thank you great while it was in Victorian England that these views of the contemporary idyllic life with were so popular with the new management classes do you have English connections well my husband had and did he buy the picture because supported him or two though another because he loved it rather than yes immediately both of us liked it very much because I think they're wonderful out there and it's wonderful to see the everyday objects of our Victorian hasn't heard my suppose to say although they're looking she's looking reasonably well off the little Java sleep the discarded trumpet in fact maybe it's we don't know there's a little girl or a little boy because there's a doll in the corner and always Carlton Smith who's the artist yeah Carlton Alfred Smith always has this rather delicate touch it's the cat really which is also so beautifully painted by the fire snoozing by the fire when she makes it so nice this in fact was painted when he was 33 and he'd studied in London was a London artist okay although these sort of paintings weren't just bought by the London gentry they were very much brought by the new industrialists in Birmingham rarely to see the sort of painting unique honey who really the best place is to go to those northern museums but you've had it for for a long time 20 years or 20 years yes and you still look at it every day oh yes my favorite well in fact this sort of beautiful picture has gone into fashion in the mid seventies very much in fashion in the early ages has dropped out of fashion a little bit because of with the taste now is for impressionist and post-impressionist and now once again they're coming back all their picture as pretty and as beautifully painted for us it's never really dropped very much for price I think if we're talking in British pounds it would be worth between seven and ten thousand pounds British products well then we thought it's a Renaissance Revival style and service it's Italian and it would fit in with the sort of furniture that was made for the great exhibitions the first one in London 1851 and then Paris thereafter and in Marta was one in 1864 these huge exhibitions frosted this great love of expensive expensive and expensive pieces of furniture exhibition pieces of which this is a perfect example it has all the display of quality richness wonderful decoration is high contrast between the dark world the urbanized timber and I've I cannot make it eighteenth century so we start and I say that this was certainly 1860 to 1870 when it was made and there's some interesting little things you've got some entablatures your side I've got little panels mine which match those on the flanking corner do not marry up in quality to perhaps those on the doors this is very very evident if we get right down here now that's see your open the ball reminiscent of Titian perhaps that styled all this huge folds of cloth beautifully engraved and quite certain that it is in fact again a 19th century 19th century panel as the others are that done by someone who was not connected with the rest of it this was done as a work of art so that the cabinet was made as they were in the 18th century to contain important pieces in their own right so you have two works of art you have the cabinet and you have the entablature there's wonderful so a piece made to contain pictures done by a different artist in this magnificent style all I can say is that if this were in England and were to be insured for replacement purposes you would have to think seriously in the region of 70 or 80 thousand pounds well this is this client extraordinary remarkable object is a pilgrim bottle and I think there are called pilgrim bottles because they originally derived from a 12th century sheepskin thing of roughly the shape now they became very popular in silver at the end of the 17th century and they were made in this order size and quality prepared about 20 years and then they stopped making from the game until they reintroduce them in the 19th century and this particular one was given for Queen's prize at Ascot and it has here the Royal coat of arms the gift of Her Majesty the Queen has been 1874 and in a moment will turn it round and we'll have a look at the hallmark which is made on it quite a remarkable thing sort of laid on strapped work really beautiful I'm now going to turn around sideways because I'd like to show the these beautiful masks which are hidden under the the chain where they are beautifully modeled really quite amazing and there's a hallmark it was made by there are three with the Royal silversmiths then and still are the makers mark date letter standard marks in the Goethe mark five extraordinary thing how did it special commercial family well it used to belong to my aunt and I've inherited from her she didn't wear those who asked us right this game with the cup well this is quite an interesting letter dated 1956 and they say probably in a sale room it would fetch six or seven shillings an ounce which for three hundred and forty-one Alice's would fetch between 100 and 120 pounds when the price of silver is now about three pounds an hour so do you think this would probably worth about six or seven hundred pounds today something like that well would it surprise you to know that this quite the mark of an object today would probably fetch something between thirty and forty thousand pounds sterling [Music] well how can I possibly sum up a day like today except to say that it really has exceeded our wildest expectations first of all of course in the sheer number of people who came along to the Antiques Roadshow when we opened our doors of course because there's no tradition of row chairs here in Malta we had no idea at all if anyone would turn up but they came and in vast numbers - about 4,000 people we think we've seen here during the day and then there was the sheer quality of the antiques that they brought with them of which I suppose I'd single out the silver which was quite outstanding and of course the furniture but above all I must thank the people of Malta themselves who have not only given us today a very entertaining television program but they've

Channel: UK VHS Archive

Views: 48,589

Rating: 4.7581396 out of 5

Keywords: Antiques Roadshow, Antiques Roadshow UK, Antiques Roadshow Series 13, VHS, BBC 1, BBC, VHS 50fps, 50fps, Hugh Scully

Id: 6ut54pbdaD8

Length: 42min 20sec (2540 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 24 2018