WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow. An Antiques Roadshow guest became “emotional” as his car boot sale purchase turned out to be worth thousands. The BBC series ventured to Beaumaris Castle in North Wales to film another thrilling episode of the iconic daytime show with experts getting to know visitors and their unique items.
Expert John Foster had the pleasure of meeting a man with an unusual sculpture that he purchased three years ago and was curious to know more about it. “I’ve always been perplexed, wondering what it is. It’s been a doorstop for the past 12 months”, the guest began.
“I picked it up in a car boot sale in Anglesey about three years ago and paid £50 for it, so I’m just interested to see where it came from. Somebody mentioned it could be African, I don’t know.” Foster then stepped in to explain it had been made by sculptor Ben Enwonwu, “one of Nigeria’s most celebrated sculptors”.
“What was so brilliant about him was that he was the first pioneer in mixing Nigerian art with Western art. Known really as a sculptor in bronze and in stone and this being in carved stone. “Style wise, I would have thought it dates from the 1970s, everything about it says the 1970s.
“He was picked up by a gallery in the 1940s, and it was a gallery called the Zwemmer Gallery, and that literally, from then, skyrocketed him to having shows in New York, London, and Milan. It literally went global.” The guest pointed out tha.