Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: Antiques Roadshow, Art, TV and Film, Money
Jess Battison
The chat comes up often enough at the pub, in the office or even just the living room that we all have our answer by now: if you suddenly came into a good chunk of cash, what would you spend it on?
Maybe you’d buy some property to develop or quit your job and live on a cruise ship, or perhaps you’d do something to help out someone else.
And this Antiques Roadshow guest gave an incredible answer to what she would spend the huge amount of money from her item on.
The woman appeared on the US version of the show with a sculpture belonging to her late dad. The bronze piece was part of her father’s collection which was divided among his three daughters after he passed away a year before.
She explained: “This came from my father's collection, he passed away a year ago this month and he had a collection of bronzes and he has three daughters.
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“He kind of divvied up the bronzes and this is the one I happened to get and it's one of my favourites."
Appraiser Eric Silver did joke: “And you say you knocked it over last week?”
But, without quite knowing how valuable the sculpture is, she responded: “No, my cats knocked it over.”
It turns out the object was created by the renowned American artist, Harriet Frishmuth ‘who was very famous in her day’.
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“She studied in Paris with Auguste Rodin and she also studied in New York with Gutzon Borglum, he was the sculptor of Mount Rushmore,” Silver explained.
And with great success behind her, it became clear her sculpture was clearly worth a fair bit.
Silver added: “The piece you have is signed by her and dated 1923, which is the high point of her career,” while he described it as ‘very, very rare’.
Taking her by surprise, the appraiser gave a high-figure for the sculpture’s valuation: “It's beautifully cast, the patina is in very good condition. At auction, a piece like this would probably bring between $20,000 and $30,000 (£15,750-£23,620).”
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And instead of saying she’d be taking that hefty cash for herself, the woman revealed it would be used to help her mum retire.
“That's awesome. That's retirement to help my mum out,” she said.
"We said that if it was anything like that, we would possibly sell it if we could get that kind of money for it and give it to my mum, definitely."