Antiques Roadshow guests applauded for ‘valuable’ royal horse statue worth a small fortune
An Antiques Roadshow expert had to take a pause before revealing just how much a bronze horse statue was worth.
AR: Bronze heavy horse valued at around £60,000
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.
Antiques Roadshow guests were welcomed with a round of applause after discovering the real value of a horse statue with a royal connection.
BBC expert Geoffrey Munn met with two Bristol Water employees who wanted to get an appraisal for a bronze horse statue that belonged to the company.
Explaining its provenance, one of the women said: “So in 1956, Bristol Water opened Chew Valley Lake and we were joined by Queen Elizabeth II.
“We wanted to give her a really special gift. We over-thought it maybe and brought two statues by Herbert Haseltine and this is one of them.”
The other guest then chipped in: “I think we were edging our bets as to which statue she might prefer and she obviously decided the other one was the preferential one and perhaps this is the one we would keep as our own memento of that day.”
Munn went on to comment: “There’s a great tradition for making portrait sculptures of famous horses and this attracts an enormous amount of attention from the Royal Family who have probably been interested in horses since Henry VIII.
“And it goes right on to the present Queen as well all know she is completely fascinated by horsemanship and is a great connoisseur of horses.
“He was a very famous sculptor and it gave a note of his very distinguished patrons, not only in Europe but as far away as India and the Indian princes who had horses commissioned him to make portraits.
“This is a valuable horse, the quotation: ‘a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse’, it’s getting horribly close here as it’s a really valuable object.
“The reason it’s valuable is that equestrian interest is huge throughout the world, in the Arab world, Europe, America, so competition for such an object would be enormous.
“And then you’ve not only got a beautiful work of art but you’ve got a royal provenance.”
Munn then concluded: “So I’m going to breathe in very deeply and tell you that it’s worth £60,000.”
The colleagues were taken aback by the appraisal, with one stating: “Goodness me”, as the other covered her mouth as she exclaimed: “Oh my gosh.”
One of the women then joked: “Better put it somewhere a bit safer!” as Munn said: “Wonderful ladies, thank you! Brilliant!”
As the women continued to appear bemused by what happened, visitors who were watching the appraisal began to give them a round of applause, congratulating them on their precious horse statue.
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
