GUEST: Well, it originally belonged to my parents. They are both deceased now, and so it is now in my custody. They called it the brass urn, the bronze urn, depending on the day. So I don't know whether it's brass or bronze, but it is the urn, so...
APPRAISER: Where was it in your parents' house?
GUEST: It was in the foyer on an alabaster plant stand.
APPRAISER: So they must have thought something of it.
GUEST: Yes. Oh, yes, they loved it.
APPRAISER: It's quite an interesting piece. It has its antecedents in the first millennium BC.
GUEST: Wow.
APPRAISER: In China, where bronzes like this were cast for notable officials, used as wine vessels.
GUEST: Perfect.
APPRAISER: And they always had these serpentine handles. Now, this piece was made between 1780 and about 1810, basically an homage to this earlier form. Because in China, the Qianlong emperor, who ruled between 1735 and 1796, was really, really interested in archaic things, particularly bronze shapes. On top of the bronze itself, these gold splashes that you see on the surface?
GUEST: Yes.
APPRAISER: They call it fire gilding. It's a process of putting mercury and gold together, and then heating it to a very high temperature where the mercury evaporates, and it leaves these spots on the vessel, which are really a sign of lavish wealth. The emperor really liked having these things in his house. This is cast with six Chinese characters that look different, but are all the same character. And it's the character for long life, called "shou." And so, you have long life in six forms, in six iterations, on the surface of this vessel. And then on the underside... you have a four-character mark, which basically says that this was made for the Jade Hall, a location in the Imperial City-- in the imperial palace...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: …In the Gugong. And many, many pieces were made for this. There's a huge interest in these gold-splashed bronzes. They usually come in small forms like censers. But to have a large, and very impressive form like this-- you're looking at auction between $30,000 and $50,000.
GUEST: Oh, my God. Well, thank you very much. This is something that will stay in the family for a long time. Well, I love that it was a wine vessel, because we love wine. Long life and wine? Perfect.
