GUEST: My dad bought these at an estate sale, probably in the late '60s, from an elderly couple that were friends of theirs. And they had purchased them in Italy. When I did a little research on them, I found they were made by a designer named Gio Ponti in the early '20s. He'd been trained as an architect, and this was his first real job. When he was asked about this period of his life, he felt he was a failed architect and that he was just a draftsman now. So these were his draftings.
APPRAISER: When doing these, he did work for the Richard Ginori ceramic manufacturer. And I will show you a mark on the back. This is made in Italy. And these have a wonderful, very modern, very industrial look to them. They're extremely exciting. Even something like this, which is in black and white, is so strong graphically. The way these are decorated, these are partly transfer-printed, but they're also painted by hand over that. Now, he did these designs for many different medium. He did plates, he did vases, and he did tiles. Now, we have had several tiles-- much smaller, eight-inch tiles-- go from $550 to $1,500 a tile. Large ones like this, which are so rare and so fabulous, easily $5,000 apiece.
GUEST: Oh, no, really?
APPRAISER: Easy.
GUEST: Wow.
