Magical Faberge flower valued at £1 million - Antiques Roadshow - BBC One

we call it the regimental duel the regiment who was to share urinary later to become the Queen's and Worcestershire as ours was formed in 1794 to protect these shores against a Napoleonic invasion it was agreed that the regiment should serve only within the United Kingdom however in 1899 when the Boer War was going badly it was decided that some of the yoandri as volunteers would be mobilized and when they left the shores the Countess of Dudley whose husband the earl of Dudley was a member of the regiment he was second-in-command she presented each and every soldier that went out with a sprig of pear blossom worked in silk that they were to wear in their hat as a reminder of the county that they had left ie the the pear blossom emblem and Worcestershire a marvelous when they returned in 1903 she presented this sprig of fair blas astonishing manufactured by Faberge yes it's a lovely piece it certainly is a lovely piece this looks for all the world like a glass farce and there's a stretch in here that it's filled with water and this is the meniscus at the top of the water and nota fact it isn't it's a solid block of what is apparently glass but it's certainly not it's stone it's rock crystal it's icy cold even on this hot day and it's immensely difficult to carve it's in much much harder than glass and then the magic is to make it look as if the sprig is supported in this so it's drilled down into the rock crystal to receive the Stork life and the stalk is made of gold and it's almost as if we can see from time to time that new buds are going to blossom on here that would be quite surreal wouldn't it and then the flowers are made of enameled silver and tiny silver stamens but in the centre there's a dewdrop of Dimond glinting in the sunshine here and the leaves are made of Siberian jade from from the Ural Mountains and then we have the original fitted box here which is made of poly would literally the wood of the holy tree from Siberia and then just to get the message across you probably asked Faberge to put a triumphal Laurel here in green gold tied with the red gold bow well that invoice was the Battle honor that was awarded to themself Africa I see that's hard and so you know it is recorded there that's why we think it was 1904 because that was when they received the battle honor South Africa well it's absolutely bang-on for date for the object because some of the best things from Faberge are made in the 20th century in the age of motorcar the telephone even of electricity and here we have something that sort of redolent to the distant past because it's a shrieking pitch of perfection and luxury and it's an utterly breathtaking object so give me some impression of what the Pearblossom means in this regiment to you I think when it was presented by lady Dudley she did it to recognize the sacrifice of those soldiers that didn't come back from the war war and those that were injured I think it's a focal point almost for the younger soldiers soldiers such as me that don't way past their sell-by date and I just think it's it's this focal point it's the from what has happened years ago that we still on occasions look back to but it's important that we also look forward and I just think it provides that link for all the different ages of soldiers that have soldiered with the regiment and are intending in the future to soldier with the regiment it still comes out on dinner nights when the officers of the squadron and the regiment are assembled it's perhaps suffered over the years from being stuffed under the bed on occasion the end of the evening yes or miss the odd bread roll yes exactly it's making me utterly breathless this really because I find Faberge things on the Antiques Roadshow but nothing of this scale and I can tell you that this the size of the object the sophistication of the object the provenance of the object brings it very very close to only two other flour studies in the United Kingdom which are in the Royal Collection given what are the qualifications I've already put on this object that is a towering masterpiece of the Goldsmith's art by the most famous goldsmith of the 20th century so I'm going to tell you in my opinion that this is worth a million pounds well I supposed to say no it's not for sale it's only sneza well that's the rest a custodian I know it's not for sale

Channel: BBC

Views: 1,378,523

Rating: 4.8414907 out of 5

Keywords: Antiques Roadshow, BBC Antiques Roadshow, antiques roadshow highest value, UK, antiques roadshow faberge, antiques roadshow million pounds, pear blossom flower, sprig of pear blossom, glass vase, antiques roadshow million

Id: KhafWTKdGmk

Length: 4min 58sec (298 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Stegasaurus_Wrecks]

I wasn't sure who the expert was and who the owner was.

[u/-Yazilliclick-]

The way the guy was poking and waving his hand around it had me nervous was going to see another incident like this one

[u/Roryrooster]

What distinguishes Carl Faberge from other luxury jewelers is the lack of large precious gems. Faberge disliked using big expensive precious stones, often preferring semi-precious stones like jade and rock crystal.

He believed that the value of a Faberge had to be about the extraordinary level of craftsmanship and nothing else.

[u/thebandit87]

Worcestershire Hussars. now there a tongue twister for ya bud.

[u/hakkai999]

That's made by Faberge. The same Faberge that made the famous Russian Eggs.

[u/TimeForHugs]

At 2:37 Hank from Breaking Bad is in the background!

[u/scoot23ro]

i thought it was a real flower at the beginning of the video! amazing