GUEST: I know it's a Ladi Kwali pot from Abuja Pottery. I lived in Kaduna, Nigeria, northern Nigeria, from the mid to the late '70s.
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: And I bought it there, I loved it. I like pottery and I loved all of the Nigerian pottery.
APPRAISER: What did you pay for it?
GUEST: 100 Naira.
APPRAISER: Which would translate as approximately...?
GUEST: Well, I don't know the exact exchange rate, but I would say $120, $125?
APPRAISER: Well, it's a Ladi Kwali pot, as you've mentioned. And she was born in 1925 in the village of Kwali in the Gwari region of northern Nigeria. And she grew up, like a lot of young African women, making pots-- for the water pots and things like that. She got this reputation of producing these very beautiful pots. And the Emir of Abuja had bought some and liked them very much. And at this time, there was a gentleman from England called Michael Cardew, who was a major studio potter, and he had recently been made pottery officer by the Nigerian government. He wanted to introduce an industrial side to making pottery, and he saw Ladi's work and he invited her to join his workshop. And she was a star. She was the only woman in the workshop, in fact, at the time. He then showed her how to work on a wheel, which she hadn't done before. Up until then, all the work had been made by hand and coiled and was fired by local vegetation that they found. In working on the coiled pots and then firing them at a higher temperature, she sort of introduced this new dynamic with African art, African pottery, from the regular pottery to the more industrial firing techniques, the higher... She became very famous, and in the '50s and '60s she achieved huge status in England. She was shown at the Barclay Galleries in England and was awarded a doctorate and an MBE for her services. She was known for doing this incised work on the pottery. And you can see all around here that there is various animals and fish and plants. And this is absolutely typical of her work. She fired a lot with these green glazes and with brown glazes as well. It's difficult to date her work, especially from this later period. They're all incised under the base. I can't tip it over; it's a very heavy pot, in fact.
GUEST: It is very heavy.
APPRAISER: She died in '84, I believe?
GUEST: 1984.
APPRAISER: So I think this work is probably made in the '70s sometime.
GUEST: Oh.
APPRAISER: I think a conservative estimate, a retail price for the work would be between $8,000 and $10,000. That’s good.
(laughs)
GUEST: That's wonderful!
APPRAISER: No, it's wonderful material.
GUEST: Really? I'm astounded. I am absolutely astounded.
