Antiques Roadshow guest stunned after finding out what ‘£250k statue’ is actually worth

A guest on a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow was left stumped after his statue believed to be worth £250k was valued at a fraction of the price.

During the episode on Sunday, which was presented by Fiona Bruce from Wollaton Hall in Nottingham, a statue thought to have been from the Kota tribe from Gabon, south of Nigeria, was brought in by an excited member of the public.

The man told antique expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan that he had purchased the figure for £1.50 ten years ago at an Antiques Roadshow event in Cambridge, saying it was ‘right among the junk’.

He said of finding the statue: “I was intrigued by the fact that it looked as if somebody had put a lot of work into making it.”

BBC

Ronnie was initially very excited to see the figurine, with him saying: “When you unwrapped this, my heart really skipped a beat because it’s one of my favourite tribal African figures.”

He said that the statue appeared to be from the Kota tribe from Gabon, explaining: “This is a Kota reliquary guardian figure and they put these on the bones of their ancestors to protect them and they polished this metal.

“They’re so highly revered in the art world that they have one of these in the Metropolitan Museum in New York… They’re such iconic examples of African tribal art.

“They hammer the metal over the wood sculpture and then they chase the metal with these designs. And it’s the geometric form of them that makes them so desirable, and they influenced the greatest modern artists of all time because at the beginning of modernism, they are very, very sought-after.”

Ronnie went on to inform the guest that a few years ago, one of the figures sold for a staggering £250,000.

BBC

Upon further inspection, however, he added: “But unfortunately, this one is a very fine copy. It’s slightly the wrong size. This was probably made in about 1980 and one like this is probably worth about £150.

“It is 100 times more than you paid for it.”

The guest took the news surprisingly well, and replied: “Right… that’s a lot of money. Worth hanging onto then. Very good.”

He added: “I’m amazed that there is such interest – that people want to pay so much money for this sort of item. I think we need now to make sure they’re looked after safely and perhaps better than just being put in a box.”