Image: PBS/Antiques Roadshow
While January is typically a time to get organized, one Houston family is making you rethink gifting your mom The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up—the bestselling decluttering book that made millions of women ask their decade-old Juicy Couture pant suit and wine cork collection, “Does this bring me joy?” For Bayou City-native James Keener, his family’s bronze sculpture luckily made the cut, as it was appraised for a jaw-dropping half a million dollars.
Keener brought the sculpture to an Antiques Roadshow taping last summer in Fort Worth, which aired this Monday on PBS. Passed down from his great-great aunt, the household sculpture was actually crafted by famed French sculptor Auguste Rodin.
“Rodin was one of the greatest sculptors of the 19th and early 20th centuries,” says appraiser Eric Silver on the episode. “Some consider him comparable to Michelangelo.”
Silver told Keener that his bronze decorative sculpture, titled “Eternal Spring” circa 1900, could be worth between $450,000 and $500,000 once its authenticity was authorized by the Committee Auguste Rodin in France.
After the taping, Antiques Roadshow reported online that the bronze statue was confirmed by the organization as an authentic lifetime cast and will be added to Rodin’s catalogue raisonné.
Joy to the art world.
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