APPRAISER: I was at the ANTIQUES ROADSHOW in Fort Worth IN 2016. The most amazing piece
showed up at my table. GUEST: It was my father's great-aunt's sculpture and when she died
it came to my grandmother, and when my grandmother died it came to
my father, and he has since giving it to me. APPRAISER: And you know the artist? GUEST: Rodin.
Auguste Rodin, I didn't want to mess up his name. APPRAISER: Right and you know the title? GUEST: It's "Eternal Spring."
APPRAISER: I see lots of sculpture by Rodin and artists like Remington at
every Roadshow, they're all fakes and reproductions. When I first saw this one
I was skeptical about whether or not it was an authentic period piece. It took me
a while to get my bearings and convinced myself of the fact that you know what
this might be a real one. Rodin, one of the greatest sculptures of the 19th,
early 20th-century, some consider him comparable to Michelangelo. He was born
in 1840. He actually moved the focus of sculpture on to actual people trying to
capture real emotions of people. His work is very popular and the issue with
sculpture is when it was made and whether or not it was made under the
auspices of the artist himself. And that determines the value. Artists produced
editions of these bronzes. He cast them as they were made and he licensed the
foundry to produce these pieces. So you could see here it's actually signed
"Rodin" on the side here it's signed " F. Barbedienne, Fondeur" Ferdinand Barbedienne
the foundry. And this was a leading foundry in France at this time. Rodin
died in 1918 so we know that the ones produced in this period by Barbedienne
were done under the auspices of the artist himself, he had personal control
over the way they were made, the way they were cast, and the way they
were finished, the way they were patinated, and this is very important
when you're dealing with sculpture to denote the artist actually had his hand
in overseeing this. There's so many reproductions and fakes of his work that
in order to sell one you need a certification from a group called the
Committee Auguste Rodin. My feeling is that it is an authentic period one, done
somewhere between 1880 and 1917 and 1918. Right during his lifetime or very
shortly thereafter. In June of this year, 2016, in London, one brought four hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. GUEST: Wow. Wow. That, wow four hundred and fifty thousand
dollars. That is amazing. APPRAISER: At auction, one estimate on this would be in that four
hundred to five hundred thousand dollar range. GUEST: Wow, I got to get the heck out of
dodge here. How am I gonna - wow. APPRAISER: We have protection for you. GUEST: Oh thank
you. That is incredible. APPRAISER: If it turns out not to be an authentic authorized
casting it could be worth five maybe even ten thousand dollars at auction. GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: You've probably come in with the only authentic Rodin bronze ever to come into
the show. GUEST: Wow that's amazing. I'm flabbergasted. APPRAISER: Before the show was aired
I got a note from the owner and he told me that he was going to have a party to
watch the ROADSHOW. And then he later actually sent me a photograph of
him and his family sitting around watching the television.
And then later on I know he decided to sell it. It was given to him by his
father and when he found out the value of it he gave it back to his father and
they decided to sell it. His father was some retirement and I
think the proceeds would would go to his father's retirement. APPRAISER: I remember seeing
the Rodin the first time in Fort Worth. I was sitting at the glass table
and they were filming like right in front of our table and we were all
creaking our necks going, "what's that? What's that? Is it real? Is it real?
Is it fake? What's the story behind it? What's Eric going to say?" We were all
excited and surprised to feel what it was. The show was filmed on a Saturday
morning — throughout all day Saturday and by Monday morning I get a
call from the family because I work in Dallas and that was close to them, and
said, "We were on the Antiques Roadshow in Fort Worth. We were the people that
had the Rodin, do you -?" I was like, "Oh I remember you,
was it real?" She's like, "We don't know but it may be can you help us find out." And I
said, "Absolutely." So I worked with the family to contact the the gallery in
Paris that is putting together the catalog resume. The catalog resume is the
list of all the artists works and only a letter from this gentleman is who
everybody believes will say this is a Rodin. It had to be photographed, it had
to be measured, to the hundredth of the centimeter to the exact same size. Every
marking had to be photographed, everything had to be done and paid in
advance of course too - for his fee and then we set up an appointment for him to see
the piece in New York. He spent probably a couple of hours with it looking over
every, inspecting every piece of it going back and forth and the whole time we're
like, "Can you give us a thumbs up, thumbs down? Can he gave us more information?"
And he wasn't quite but he just had like a little smirk and a nice little smile.
So we felt really comfortable coming out of that. It was a couple weeks later that
he contacted us with his letter with his official findings. Yes it was authentic
it was a Rodin. It's from the second state third reduction
and there's probably about 80 to 83 known casts
that were made. And most importantly, as Eric said, it was a lifetime cast because
being cast in the artists lifetime is the most highly prized by collectors
which means it's the most valuable. It ended up being sold at Sotheby's London
they did a wonderful job with it. They estimated it at two hundred and fifty to
three hundred and fifty thousand pounds and it's sold with buyers premium for
just under three hundred thousand pounds. Now since the time that we filmed in
Fort Worth there have been several others of this cast that have come up to
market and and because there's been a greater supply that you've lost a couple
of bidders because no one's going to buy two. So that way you're gonna have a
little less bidding as more come out. So if I was in an auction estimate today I
would probably be at $300,00 to the $500,000. SILVER: This is among the the
greatest discoveries I made a Roadshow. Seeing a really important work of art
like this I got to pick it up I got to turn it around and you just can't do
that in normal circumstances. I can have an immediate personal physical
connection to a very important work of art and I you don't get that in the
museum.