GUEST: This belonged to my great-aunt, and she ran an antiques store in Colorado in the '40s and the '50s. When she passed away, her estate was settled, and my dad received this vase, and then when he died, it became mine.
APPRAISER: What did you dad tell you about this piece? Did he know anything about it?
GUEST: All they told me about it was that it was a Gallé vase.
APPRAISER: Did you know who he was?
GUEST: Not really.
APPRAISER: Okay. Let me tell you a little bit about who he is. French man, his first name was …mile, and he was born in 1846 in Nancy, France. His father owned a glass factory and a ceramics factory. He kind of dabbled a little bit in ceramics and started working in glass himself. And he took some of his glasswares to the Paris International Exposition, and they went over very well. Gallés’ biggest influence was nature, and you see that by the beautiful flowers that are on this vase, and you also see things enameled with insects and bugs, all kinds of organic-type things. This was made around the turn of the century. …Emile Gallé died in 1904. However, they continued to operate his glassworks until 1936, when they closed. The quality of the pieces after he died kind of went down, and you would not see pieces like this produced after his death. Earlier pieces like this are called marquetry, which is a technique that he made that we don't see very much of. He also did things in enamel, and cameo glass, which are the things that we show most often here on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, and that you see in the antiques stores. We recognize the style of this piece, but we also see that it says, "Gallé."
GUEST: Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER: You told me that you hadn't even recognized that it was signed before.
GUEST: No, we didn't recognize that it was signed until today, when we were holding it and waiting.
APPRAISER: These things don't come on today's market very much. If this piece came up at auction today, because of the size and because of the rarity, this piece would probably bring anywhere from $60,000 to $80,000.
GUEST: You're kidding!
APPRAISER: No, I'm not.
GUEST: You know, that just almost leaves me breathless, because I had no idea. I knew it had a value to it if it was actually Gall, I knew that, but never that much.
APPRAISER: Well, your great-aunt, she had amazing taste.
