116-Year-Old Painting Is A 'Masterpiece' | Antiques Roadshow

This is one of the most romanticised moments in British military history, the charge of the Light Brigade, and here we have, at the moment of the impact, charging through the batteries, the throat plumes streaming out behind, and this was there so that he could be identified by his other troops and men. Now, was it a moment of madness? It seemed to be one of those extraordinary moments in British history in which we excel, because it gained so little, but of course it was one of the most famous moments ever. Tell me, what is your interest in the picture? I like great military pieces. Just, you know, the thought of the battle, really. Romance. And have you known it for a long time? I've known it for about 45 years. I was lucky my parents bought it and have since handed it to me. Yes. Well, it's interesting because the painting is by not a particularly well-known artist called Christopher Clarke. The date is 1908. And what I particularly like, the way that the horse is around, the fighting going on, the various movements, but then in the background, this veil of body colour, obscuring what's happening behind, and I think this ghostly horse being thrown up in a moment of impact is beautifully represented. So, in all, I think it's a masterpiece by somebody not particularly well-known. And we come now to value. So, I think there's probably somewhere in the range of £2,000 to £3,000. That's fine because I enjoy the painting. Good. Well, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Now, what's special about this? Well, the history to it. Tell me what the history is. Well, it's supposed to have belonged to Lady Jane Grey. Well, I think what's fascinating about this piece of jewellery is that it's mounted in silver in a most particular way. In the 17th century, and in the 16th century too, they'd find these little pieces of natural history, shells and horns and hooves of antelopes and beetles and this sort of thing, and mount them up and turn them into what are called magical jewels. These are talismanic jewels, and they're worn to ward off the evil eye. Now, it is a broken one, but I can see that it's a cowrie shell. Yeah. And the magical significance of the cowrie shell is that it's a fertility symbol, a female fertility symbol, which brings with it good luck. And we turn it over and it says, rather disarmingly, Jane Grey died 1554. Why on earth one should suppose that such a tiny, tiny little jewel should have anything to do with a queen of England, albeit a queen who only reigned for nine days, is really stretching credibility to the limits, isn't it? Yeah. Well, it is, yeah. So I think what we can be faced with here is that we've got a late 16th, early 17th century magical jewel mounted in silver with an added punch referring to a queen who died after reigning only nine days. She died a violent death in the Tower of London with the axe. And this, I know, and this is a reference to her. She's a Protestant heroine, and that, I think, is why it's engraved on the back. And this is no way meant to deceive. It's also no way as it meant for us to believe that this is a jewel directly from her. It's just a reference to an English martyr. Marvellous, marvellous thing. Can you imagine how we're going to value this? Not really, because I can't see that it has a lot of value. No, and I think you're absolutely right. I'd say its value is absolutely next to nothing, which is absolutely unimportant to me, because I think it's loaded with interest. And let's hope it brings some good luck to both of us. That'd be nice, wouldn't it? Well, it would.