This is nifty. Hope the program will show on BBC America.
A unique archive of watercolours and drawings by Beatrix Potter worth an estimated £250,000 has been discovered by the BBC television programme The Antiques Roadshow.
The collection of 23 illustrations by the creator of such classic characters as Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin and Jemima Puddle-Duck were brought in to the Roadshow when it visited Dumfries. The owner was astonished to discover that the early drawings, which pre-date Potter's best-selling children's books, would be worth so much.
"She knew who they were by but she did not think they were worth quite so much," said Jack Swanston, who took them to the Roadshow on behalf of the owner, his daughter-in-law's mother. The owner, an elderly woman living in the Borders, inherited them from her aunt.
Clive Farahar, one of the Roadshow's experts, said: "They are the most expensive things I have ever found on the programme." Mr Farahar valued a watercolour of a mouse reading a newspaper at up to £10,000. It is dated 1890, more than a decade before her first bestseller, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was published.
The next series of the Antiques Roadshow begins on Sept 7 and the programme featuring the Potter collection in Dumfries will be shown on Oct 12.
via The Telegraph (UK)