Antiques Roadshow: Expert values abstract painting
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Antiques Roadshow returned to BBC screens when Fiona Bruce and her team travelled to Forty Hall in Enfield where guests flooded in with their most precious heirlooms ready to be valued, hoping to make a huge profit. However, for one lucky guest, their £4 charity shop frame which held a painting inside was valued at a staggering price, leaving expert Alexandra Gill in awe.
While inspecting the painting, the print specialist began: “What a pleasure to see a semi-abstract work on the Roadshow.
“How did you come by this?” the TV expert asked the couple.
The owner replied: “We’re really lucky, it’s from a local charity shop.”
He continued: “Around seven years ago, I just popped in one morning, and, to be honest, I was just looking at the picture frames.
The guest chuckled: “I had a poster at home that it would have been handy for but I wasn’t too fussed.
“And, then, I didn’t really like it at first but I noticed that there was a signature on it.”
A close up of the signature Henry Cliffe at the bottom left corner of the artwork was shown when the guest went on to say: “I went home and did a bit of investigating.
“And told the wife, and she told me to run back around there and get it,” he giggled.
“We all want one of those stories,” Alexandra shared with the guest in awe.
While looking at the print, the owner of the frame gushed: “We couldn’t believe it.”
Explaining its backstory, the art specialist told the couple: “Well, it’s by Henry Cliffe, who is a British 20th-century abstract painter.
“He was born in 1919, he studied at the Bath Academy and his work developed from semi-figurative into fully abstract.
“And then here, towards the end of his life, he died in ’83, he became a little more figurative, again.”
Viewers saw a zoomed-in shot of the thick paintbrush strokes which had been applied to the canvas.
Alexandra went on to explain: “This is a gouache on paper titled Red Bush On Snow on the back, which is always good to have.
“There are other similar subjects he did around the same time,” she said.
Looking back at the framed picture, the BBC presenter beamed: “I think they’re absolutely fantastic.”
Elsewhere, Alexandra asked the guest which poster he’d had ready to frame, which was the original intent for him to purchase the artwork in the first place, to which he revealed it was an AC/DC picture but because it was the wrong size, he decided against replacing the image inside.
“How much did you pay for the frame?” the art lover asked before the frame owner revealed it was “£4”.
When it came to the valuation, Alexandra looked the piece up and down before she announced: “I think probably at auction now, we’re probably looking at somewhere in the region of £800 to £1,200 – maybe £1,000.”
“That’s fantastic,” the couple nodded with a smile on their face at the eye-watering profit.
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
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