WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.

One guest at the Antique Roadshow was left jaw-dropping when a five-figure price tag was offered for some paintings that had not seen the light of day for over a decade.

In the BBC daytime series, expert David Battle met a guest at Ightham Mote in Ivy Hatch, who presented him with two unusual paintings.

“Do you have those hanging on your wall?” Battle asked the owner.

She replied, “No. They’ve been in my attic for about 14 years.”

Battle teased, “Oh, so you really, really like them,” to which the guest laughed because she didn’t like them. “My husband bought them at a car boot sale about 15 years ago,” she explained.

“My son-in-law thinks they are Native American and date from the mid-18th century because he thinks he is the expert.”

Since there was little to no information about the items or how much her husband paid at the time, Battle said her son-in-law was “completely wrong.”

He continued: “The frames are Chinese, 18th century. They enclose an inner setting of enamel on copper, very, very beautifully done.

“Then there is another border, this time with roughly cut garnets, probably in gold-plated pearls.

“The frame encloses these two scenes. What is going on? I find the iconography deeply enigmatic.

“The obvious one is this elephant. Could it be an Indian painting, as suspected? No.

“How do I know it’s not an Indian painting? By the elephant’s eyes. Only the Chinese paint elephant eyes like that, so it’s definitely Chinese. The white elephant is a symbol of Buddha.”

Battle pointed to an English girl in the same painting holding up a “burning pearl” as well as two Buddhist dragons battling for the jewel in the sky.

Then the expert moved on to the second painting: “But here? What is going on here? We have a man presenting a silver urn to a military leader.

“Why? The way he holds his hands suggests that he is cradling the thing and receiving it with love and attention.

“He’s not just going to put soup in a silver urn. I think these two symbolize the girl’s death, and she in turn symbolizes her husband receiving her soul.

“And this neoclassical urn is typical of the symbolism of mourning.

“I think these are just the most amazing things I’ve seen in a long time.”

At the end of his assessment, Battle concluded: “I would get them out of the attic. I think you should invest a bit of money in cleaning them because I think they would fetch between £15,000 and £20,000.”

The guest obviously hadn’t expected such a high rating, because when she heard the amount, her jaw dropped.

She couldn’t speak and just laughed and swung her legs delightedly on her chair.

The Antiques Roadshow can be viewed on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.