GUEST: It was my grandmother's, and about ten years ago, my mother gave it to me. My grandmother came from Italy, on the boat, it landed in the United States sometime in the 1800s, and my mother was born in 1917, so... I don't know whether it came from Italy, or if she purchased it after she was in New Orleans and got married.
APPRAISER: I think what this is, is a piece of New Orleans Art Pottery. Now, New Orleans Art Pottery was very short-lived operation. Its roots were in 1885. Sometime around '88, '89, they were already out of business. And teacher Ellsworth Woodward went to New Orleans to teach the ladies how to do decorative arts, and started the Ladies Decorative Arts League in 1885. In '86, on Baronne Street, opened up a pottery and brought in two potters, Joseph Meyers and the famous George Ohr. George Ohr actually left his own pottery here in Biloxi to go to New Orleans to throw pots for a couple of years with Woodward and with Meyers on Baronne Street. So I think this is one of those pieces. Now, how do we, how do we know this without a mark on it? This work is so obscure. There are maybe 20 pieces known of the New Orleans Art Pottery. Utilitarian forms such as jardinière’s predominated and they were used and they were broken. So what do we look for? Several things-- number one, this crosshatching on both sides is typical of work I've seen on New Orleans Art Pottery. It's somewhat of a fingerprint. I think more importantly, this piece has a sophisticated crudeness. If you look at the way the handles are formed on the top, the lumpiness of the decoration. On the other hand, it's really well done. It's, it's an oxymoron, because it's got elements of high art and heavy-handedness at the same time. If we look inside, at the clay, that is the clay I've seen on pieces made from the New Orleans Art Pottery. It looks like mud from the New Orleans streets. In addition to that, there are very fine lines going around this pot as though someone used a sponge or a finishing tool while it was still on the wheel to even out the inside. Several of the pieces I've seen of New Orleans Art Pottery had these concentric circles going through the inside of the pot. So again, there are many elements of this. I doubt very much that your grandmother brought a jardinière over from Italy with her on the boat.
GUEST: Right.
APPRAISER: I mean, it's much more likely she would have found it here, arriving in New Orleans, which is where this pot would have been made, so...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: I think the odds are about ten to one that this is a piece of New Orleans Art Pottery. This is in amazing condition, considering what it must have been through for 130 years? If this was just another Victorian cast pot in a majolica style, which this glaze is, it's worth $100, okay? Because it's a hand-thrown one, rather than cast, I'm thinking perhaps, at auction, a piece like this would bring somewhere between $400 and $600. If it's a piece of New Orleans Art Pottery, and we're pretty sure about that, at auction, the value is somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000.
GUEST: (exhales)
APPRAISER: If we find a picture of this piece...
GUEST: Okay.
APPRAISER: ...in our research, I think we have a piece of New Orleans Art Pottery worth between $20,000 and $30,000.
GUEST: Oh, my word.
APPRAISER: Okay? It just gets better. So, I think you're looking at a piece probably that's going to be worth, estimated, at auction, somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000, but we're gonna get back to you on that one, okay?
GUEST: Okay, all right, wow. (breath trembles) (voice breaking) Where should I keep it?
APPRAISER: Uh, not on the floor, where you had it sitting a little earlier. Even though it's meant to have flowers put in it, I'd definitely keep it protected.
GUEST: Thank you.
APPRAISER: You're welcome, my pleasure.
