GUEST: I bought this one at, uh, five or six years ago, at a garage sale. The first day, I didn't find, uh, this one.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: I found a pair of the, uh, porcelain vase.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: Um, I think it's expensive, so I didn't buy that first day. On the second day, when I can go back, I found, uh, this one.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And so, I ask, uh, her, "How much for this one?" She say, "Ten dollar." So, I bought this one. (chuckles)
APPRAISER: Great. You found this at a garage sale for ten dollars about five or six years ago?
APPRAISER: Yeah.
GUEST: Okay, and what we're looking at here is a Sino-Tibetan gilt bronze figure of a seated bodhisattva, who is a devotional figure, which dates to the 18th century, which is in the Qing period. I can tell that it is a bodhisattva because of the very elaborate jewelry. You have the necklace there, the earrings, here around the upper arm, and again, around the wrists and the ankles. So, the hair has been pulled up into this elaborate chignon that's held in place with this bejeweled headdress. And the hair here falls down gracefully across the, the shoulders and down to the arm. So, these figures would have been used in temples.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: And that's, that's part of the reason why they are so brightly colored. So, we have to imagine what this gilt bronze figure would have looked like in a very dark interior.
GUEST: Uh-huh.
APPRAISER: It would have had this almost magical shimmery effect. So, these figures are cast fully in the round and it's very crisp. You have the drapery coming across the back and we get a sense of the body here with the wide shoulders that tapers to a very narrow waist. A very sensuous figure. The figure is seated on a double-lotus base. What's really nice about this figure is that it still has its base plate in place, which means that the sacred texts are still within the figure. Oftentimes, this plate has been removed and, and the texts are missing. Do you have any ideas about the value?
GUEST: $6,000? (chuckles) I don't know. (laughing)
APPRAISER: You're, you're very close.
GUEST: (laughs): Very close?
APPRAISER: So at auction, I would say the value here would be $7,000 to $10,000, at auction.
GUEST: Oh, okay, okay. All right, that's good, thank you.
