GUEST: My great-grandmother purchased this on a trip to Germany. She was born and raised in Germany, and had gone back there in the early 1930s and bought this statue, uh, paid 160 marks for it back in 1931. And it's always been in her house, and I've always admired it. When she passed away, it went to my grandmother. And when she died, it went to my mom. Now it's in, proudly adorning my house.
APPRAISER: Oh, right. Looks like she did quite a bit of purchasing on that trip. Was it all art and antiques, or this record everything?
GUEST: Um, jewelry, a lot of knickknacks and pictures and frames. And we still have some of those pieces, but this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I just absolutely love this statue.
APPRAISER: Oh, it's quite, quite wonderful. I'll turn it a little bit so we can look at the signature. The artist is Edward Onslow Ford, who was a British sculptor born in the 1850s, and had a relatively short life; he died in 1901.
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: He spent most of his career, uh, in Britain. Um, though he did study in Antwerp and also in Munich. And one of the things that really, um, attracted me to it when I, when I saw it at the table is, if you look at the fabric of the skirt, it really looks like it's moving, doesn't it?
GUEST: Yes, yeah.
APPRAISER: As she spins around, it's almost like it's swirling out. And it's just really beautiful quality. Cast in bronze, uh, probably in the 1880s. It has a wonderful, um, dark brown patina to it.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: It's really in very good condition. Ford was a well-known sculptor in his own day, and is very well regarded today. At the time, he did large monuments for public places. Seemed to have had the forethought to, um, also offer those as small reductions in more of a household size at the time.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: Um, he's also known for genre scenes, sort of these young, attractive women in various poses. But, you know, it is really such a beautiful-quality piece, and we don't see an awful lot of British sculpture on the market. And certainly, most of what we see in this type of material is French. So it's a very nice treat to see British sculpture, particularly of this quality.
GUEST: Do you know how many of these he did?
APPRAISER: With bronzes, it's really-- unless it's a numbered edition, it's very hard to know. My assumption is probably dozens.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: It wasn't something that was a mass production.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And it's quite a compelling figure. For insurance purposes, I would think in the $20,000 range.
GUEST: Wow. Wow.
APPRAISER: So definitely something to take good care of.
GUEST: That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
APPRAISER: Thanks for bringing it in today.
GUEST: Thank you very much.
