GUEST: I bought it at an auction about 25 years ago. Paid around $15. I bought it because I like daisies, and I don't know anything about pottery. My girlfriend Michelle collects pottery, and she saw it and told me that it was an early Roseville piece. It's Rozane Ware. She looked it up in a book and said the value for a mint condition was around $3,000. So since it's not mint condition, I was wondering what the value was.
APPRAISER: This particular line is called Della Robbia. The original Della Robbias were Italian, but the name was taken for this particular line, which was designed by Frederick Hurten Rhead. Now, Frederick Rhead was an Englishman, and he came over to this country in about 1902, and he joined Roseville in 1904, and he really transformed what they were doing over there. It gave them a really wonderful Arts and Crafts look, but with a lot of style, a lot of English style. And he designed 72 different models, starting in 1906. Now, sometimes they're actually done by his hand, but often they're done by other workers. Most Roseville we know as being cast and having little hand-painting. This is entirely hand-carved and -excised. Now, there were two different generations of Della Robbia. This is the early one, with many beautiful colors. The later one is usually done in one or two complementary colors.
GUEST: There are initials on the bottom, too.
APPRAISER: Which are probably from the person who did the carving. That is the initial of the worker. And underneath, we'll see the "Rozane Ware," which is a particular time period in Roseville history, where they would sign their pieces with this medallion. Now, there's some damage here. There's little chips on the enameling. You can have it repaired if you wish. Per chip, it'll cost maybe $100 to $150. Most pieces of Della Robbia have some kind of damage to them, or restoration, because it's a very porous, low-fired item. Because this piece, with its lovely daisies-- which also looks great from the top, by the way-- is so wonderful, so great, so rare, even with all these little flakes, at auction, we would certainly put that at $10,000 to $15,000.
GUEST: You're kidding!
APPRAISER: Okay.
GUEST: Right now, my husband's jumping up and down, saying, "Sell, sell, sell!" (laughing)
