2:00pm Sunday 14th March 2010
Antiques Roadshow expert Clive Farahar was less than impressed with a statue that used to belong to ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev when he called into Devizes on Monday.
Mr Farahar, who lives in Calne, had agreed to carry out an evaluation of books brought in by local people at the Old Curiosity Market in The Shambles market hall.
He soon had a queue of people with their heirlooms and prized antiques for his attention.
Knowing he was coming, market trader and conservation expert David Levy, from Westbury, brought in his pride and joy, a bronze by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali which he picked up in London two years ago at a sale of the effects of Mr Nureyev, who died in 1993.
But Mr Farahar was scathing about the statue. He said: “I think it is horrible. Dali was a very difficult person to enjoy. He was a populist artist and would sign blank pieces of paper so people could do their own drawing and pretend it was his. I don’t like him because of that.
“But what is amazing is that you find something like that here in Devizes. This is an enormously vibrant market and you can never be sure what you might find.”
Mr Levy was philosophical about Mr Farahar’s opinion of his Dali masterpiece, one of a limited edition of 199.
He said: “I don’t want to say how much I paid for it, but I got offered three times as much in the car park on the way out. Some chap had come to bid for it and arrived too late.
“I love it. I have it beside my bed so I can see it when I wake up every day.”
Recently a watercolour by the Prince of Wales sold for £60 at the market and has since been valued at five times the price.
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