Antiques Roadshow hugs expert after 5-figure value for damaged screen in a 'bedsheet'

An Antiques Roadshow guest hugged an expert after being informed that her screen was worth a hefty and unexpected sum. 

Big or small, experts are on hand to appraise a truly wide range of items with one guest bringing in a large court screen she was thinking of throwing away. 

Talking on the PBS series, she said: “My husband had this when we were first going together and he had gotten it from his uncle. 

“It didn’t fit in our home anymore so we stored it and quite regretfully it got damaged and I want to know if it’s worth any value or if it’s something to discard of and say ‘too bad it’s gone.’”

At the time of this appraisal, expert Lark E Mason thought that the screen was of Chinese descent but the subtitles of the daytime show revealed that it was actually Korean.

Read more: Antiques Roadshow experts left ‘confused’ what pricey ‘monstrosity’ actually is

“Chinese painting is done in a narrative fashion so you have the same thing represented in different poses and this is a figure of a woman named Si wang-mu”, he commented. 

“She was sort of the leader of the immortals and there’s this heavenly band of deities in Chinese mythology. 

“And they lived on an island which is the island of the immortals. 

“If you look at this figure here, see the details? This gold decoration on the robe, beautifully painted which is characteristic of a type of design that you find often on screens from the late 17th, early 18th Century and I think that’s when this dates from.”

He then began to point out the damage that had already been done to the screen: “The big question is, what is the effect of sitting in the water in the basement?

“And it’s lifting from the paper and wooden background and even some of the pigments are starting to lift from the silk surface.

“Nonetheless, the quality of it is superb, you rarely get things like this, which is a banquet scene, probably given to a very high official for a birthday celebration. 

“Anyone that could have afforded this screen lived in a tremendously large compound with a very high ceiling home, had a lot of money. 

“So this was something that was meant for the highest tiers of society.”

What the guest wasn’t expecting was the extortionate value that Mason would give the screen.

He commented: “I think, and my colleagues agree, that the value of this has to be in the $30,000 to $40,000 range as it is now.” 

Its owner began laughing: “Oh my goodness. And I was wondering - I didn’t know if it should be saved or not!”

“It certainly is not something to leave in the basement," Mason teased. 

“Yeah heaven’s no! And I brought it in a bedsheet!” she said when the guest couldn’t help but lean over to embrace the expert in a bear hug, exclaiming “thank you!”. 

Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on PBS.