Antiques Roadshow guest is left speechless at whopping value of wooden chair with a very unique history: ‘You are kidding!
An unearthed Antiques Roadshow clip has revealed the moment a woman discovered a chair she thought was worth $2,000 was actually worth $50,000.
Melinda Murphy brought along several items from her father that were created or previously owned by artist and illustrator Norman Rockwell.
Murphy explained to appraiser Alasdair Nichol that she worked with Rockwell several times as a child model, even appearing as a baby in his famous Babysitter painting. Her late father Gene was also his photographer.
She left behind several works of art by the artist – who was famous for his fascination with small-town American life – and even a signed letter addressed to Gene.
But Murphy was especially stunned by the value of Rockwell’s chair, which appears in some of his most famous works.
Melinda Murphy was stunned to learn from appraiser Alasdair Nichol that a Norman Rockwell chair was worth at least $50,000.
The chair belonged to Murphy’s father Gene, Rockwell’s photographer. Gene took over the chair after Rockwell planned to throw it out
When asked by Nichol how much she thought the chair was worth, she replied, “I have no idea,” before adding, “maybe a few thousand.”
To her surprise, Nichol then reveals that appraisers had estimated its true value at $50,000.
“It’s quite iconic of this painting and when you think about the amazing paintings he did sitting in this chair,” he said in the 2012 segment that aired as a special on PBS last week.
However, the chair wasn’t the most expensive item Murphy brought to the event.
In one of the paintings she showed on the PBS show, she was eating a spoonful of cereal for what could have been a Kellogg’s ad.
“I was going to be on the cover of the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes Box, so Norman did two paintings, my brother and myself,” she told Nichol in 2012.
But the company didn’t select Murphy or her brother for the cereal box because they were both “too pretty.”
‘They wanted more healthy, American-looking children. So they sent the paintings back to Norman, and he gave them to my father,” she said.
The artist wrote a personal note on the painting, which read: “My best wishes to Norman Rockwell’s Chickie Pelham.”
Nichol told Murphy that the rejected Kellogg painting was worth $80,000 to $90,000.
The least expensive item Murphy brought to the show was a reproductive image of her and her brother in a DuMont television advertisement with a letter signed by Rockwell.
Murphy was a regular at Rockwell’s studio and was featured in more than one of the late artist’s works, including a painting worth between $80,000 and $90,000.
Murphy and her brother were featured in a DuMont television commercial. The former Rockwell model brought a reproduction of the artwork, which was worth no money
The photo itself had no value, but Nichol told Murphy that the letter signed by Rockwell was worth a few hundred dollars.
Murphy had several facts for the appraiser as she spoke to him about the items she brought to the show in 2012.
The former Rockwell model was first seen in his 1947 painting, The babysitterin which she was the crying baby.
“I was the baby in the babysitter painting. My mother told me many years later how bad she felt because they had to stick pins on my feet to make me cry,” Murphy said.
Murphy was first seen in Rockwell’s 1947 painting called The Babysitter, where she portrayed the crying baby
“She thought that was wrong, but they couldn’t find another way to make me cry, I guess.”
Rockwell later created Christmas cards featuring Murphy before she and her brother participated in DuMont’s television commercials.
Murphy and her brother spent more than 15 hours in the television commercial with breaks in between, but she still loved the environment.
‘It was amazing. “I went there so often that I got to know his studio really well and he had a Coke machine in his back room,” she said.
“He was very kind and soft-spoken, but he was very detailed in the way he wanted you to sit.”
