GUEST: This bowl was a gift to my great-grandmother when my great-grandfather was the secretary to the ambassador in China. And they were there during the Boxer Rebellion.
APPRAISER: So that's around 19...
GUEST: In 1900.
APPRAISER: In 1900.
GUEST: Yes. And the siege lasted for eight weeks, and when the siege was over, my great-grandmother received gifts from the Chinese citizens. They had been so grateful for the kindness that was shown to them.
APPRAISER: So you know a little bit about this in that you had an appraisal done a number of years ago?
GUEST: 30 years ago.
APPRAISER: And it was valued for...?
GUEST: About $1,500 to $2,000.
APPRAISER: Okay. Well, firstly is the basic shape. It's a nice, large size. You don't usually get bowls of this size. The other is, the design itself is called the Eight Buddhist Emblems, and that's pronounced the "ba jixiang." Buddhist emblems are these-- you see that's one.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: There's another one, two. Goes all the way around, three, and there's a wheel, and those are interspersed among stylized cloud scrolls at the very top...
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And a lotus vine with lotus flowers. Now, this is all based on a Ming design from the Ming Dynasty.
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: And what's really interesting about these is, if you look at the lotus flower, you see that the dark colors of the blue are achieved by little, tiny pin pricks, dots, of color. Well, that's to simulate what you would find during the Ming Dynasty, called the "heaped and piled" technique, where you'd have a naturally occurring, very rich, intense purplish kind of blue that occurred because of the impurities in the cobalt.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: So in the 18th century, which is when this was made...
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: ...they tried to copy that, and they did not have the impurities in their cobalt, so they did it by putting these little dots close together.
GUEST: Oh, okay.
APPRAISER: And that's a technique you only find in the 18th century, so that's a good sign. There's a mark here, and this is a mark for the Qianlong period, which is 1736 to 1795. This is called a seal mark-- it's a rectangular mark, as opposed to a character mark. So this is a, obviously, it's a nice bowl, but what really is interesting is when you look at the inside-- that's a design that is very much Tibetan in influence. So this was probably made as a gift for a Tibetan temple.
GUEST: Oh, my!
APPRAISER: And it was probably made in China and given by the Qianlong emperor or one of his... someone in his court, to go to Tibet. I would say this should be insured for about $40,000.
GUEST: Oh, my. That's something. (chuckling) That's wonderful.
APPRAISER: So you've got a prize.
GUEST: That's wonderful.
APPRAISER: And that history and the provenance you've got is truly extraordinary.
GUEST: I treasure it.
