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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Entertainment
Megan Nisbet & Kate Lally

Woman 'astonished' over true value of charity shop painting at Antiques Roadshow

A woman was "astonished" after finding out what a charity shop buy was actually worth on Antiques Roadshow.

The BBC show was filmed at Powis Castle in Wales, with guests sharing the stories behind a whole range of items, as usual. There was a ventriloquist's dummy, a 300-year-old love token, a gold brooch in the shape of a bird, and an oil painting of some Scottish islands.

Art expert Grant Ford was thrilled with the piece, which was bought by the guest for £25 in a charity shop.

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Grant explained: "This is such an immediate, fluid, colourful painting, I'd love to be able to paint just like this. It really is a confident, colourist painting, now, it's an oil on canvas and it's clearly signed lower right, Cunningham."

Asking the guest how she came to own it, she replied: "So I bought this painting 10 years ago, it's a Scottish scene, a peninsula on the west coast of Scotland and we'd all had a family holiday there.

"We were driving home, all the way back to Shropshire, and my children were only 10 and 12 and I realised the rain was coming down and I had no raincoat for the children, so I stopped at the nearest charity shop and went in to get a raincoat but I didn't get a raincoat, I got a painting."

Grant told her he wished he had got there before she did, Wales Online reports, before going on to explain that John Cunningham was born and bred in Lancashire but was centred in Glasgow where he was a senior lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art.

Upon retiring he became a professional artist in 1985, and the oil painting brought to the Roadshow was a desired piece. Grant then asked: "You go into the charity shop for a raincoat, and you find a picture by John Cunningham, one of his favourite subjects, what did you pay for it?"

The guest explained she paid £25 for the painting 10 years ago, to which Grant replied: "I just think that's an amazing bit of luck because this is a very sought-after painting and actually holds quite a lot of value. I can confidently say it's worth £4,000 to £6,000."

The woman was taken aback as she said: "Oh wow, that's quite astonishing for £25, I'm glad I bought it". Grant added: "You could have found a raincoat that day, luckily you found a brilliant painting."

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