1888 Hamo Thornycroft Bronze of General Gordon
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GUEST:
I found this at a thrift store.
APPRAISER:
And you go there often?
GUEST:
I do. On my lunchtime, I typically go looking for treasure just to wind down.
APPRAISER:
But this appealed to you one day at lunch.
GUEST:
It did. I, I just couldn't leave it behind. I think he's a hottie. (laughs) I just think he's adorable, and he's gorgeous, and he looks great on any shelf.
APPRAISR: He is a handsome devil.
GUEST:
(laughs)
APPRAISER:
It's a very interesting sculpture. It's by one of the leading English artists of the late 19th century. His name is Hamo Thornycroft. And it's signed very clearly, and it's dated 1888. And this is a depiction of a general, General Gordon. And General Gordon was one of the premier Victorian soldiers of that period, from the 1850s to the 1880s. He was incredibly famous in England at the time. And here he's depicted, though, not in a militaristic way. He's sort of turned inward. He's more pensive. He's more thoughtful. He was so important that they commissioned a ten-foot version of this for Trafalgar Square in London, and another ten-foot version for Melbourne, Australia. It was in Trafalgar Square from the late 19th century till 1943. It was taken down during the war, and it was eventually moved, and now it's on the Victoria Embankment. Thornycroft was an important sculptor of the period. He was a leader of a movement called the New Sculpture. It was sort of a movement away from traditional academic sculpture into more modern sculpture. It was made in an edition. And on the back, the gallery that produced the edition inscribed their name on it. So when you showed it to me, it had these two little dots here. At some point in its life, somebody made it into a table lamp. It doesn't really affect the value very much because it can be easily restored.
GUEST:
Oh, okay.
APPRAISR: What did you pay for it?
GUEST:
$26.95.
APPRAISER:
I think a retail price on this would probably be in the $4,000 to $5,000 range.
GUEST:
Wow. (laughs) I guess he was worth it. (laughs)
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