WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow guest was stumbling over her words thanks to the price of a piece of art she nearly gave away to charity.
The BBC daytime series travelled to Cromford Mills, Derbyshire, to film another episode with expert Lawrence Hendra meeting the owner of a picture that caught his attention.
“So of all the paintings I was not expecting to see here at Cromford Mills in Derbyshire, is a painting by an artist from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pili Pili Mulongoy," he said.
When asked how it came to be in her possession, she replied: “I bought this painting with a job lot of other paintings and prints, I didn’t want half of them so I was going to take them to a charity shop.
“I had this one in my arms and I noticed that it had got a signature and could tell that it was a real painting.
“I tried to do some research about it and it’s been on my wall ever since.”
She was further probed on what drew her to the painting, with the guest replying: “I think you love it or you hate it and it’s really lovely and colourful and I love the little antelope and I can appreciate how it’s painted. I paint myself and I just really love it.”
Lawrence then elaborated: “As you can see, it’s signed on the bottom right, Pili Pili and he came from a very working class family, he trained as a plumber and a builder and then he fell under guidance of a French artist.
“He went to a drawing school set up by him, he won a prize and thereafter, he managed to develop this style of painting that was uniquely his own and you see a lot of this very delicate, vertical colouring in his pictures.
“This is on canvas, water colours and oils, but they’re often very flat in perspective.
“The animals which are the main features of his work, are often on the same picture plain as grass and sometimes forest type backgrounds.”
He went on to state that Pili Pili’s work was “actually very popular” and was collected by the Belgium Royal Family, making it a “good discovery” on the visitor’s part.
To this compliment, she laughed: “Good job I didn’t give it away!”
She then answered his question in regards to what she paid for it: “I think I paid about £18 for it, it was only about six years ago.
“There was a print that I wanted in this bundle of paintings and as I say, I gave some to a local charity shop on the way home, because I didn’t want them all.”
He continued: “But you kept this one crucially. OK well was it £18 well spent?
“Well actually, I think if this was to come up for sale now, I would expect to see it sell for a figure in the region of £3,000 to £5,000.”
Gasps could be heard from the surrounding audience as the guest exclaimed: “No!”
Her jaw dropped, turning around to her fellow guest in amazement, unsure of what to say next.
She stammered before laughing: “OK. Thank you Lawrence!”
The expert noted: “You have a good eye”, as she joked: “I like it more now.”
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.