Two 1914 Saturday Evening Girls Tiles
GUEST:
A lovely older couple who lived next to me for many years are from the East Coast originally, Boston and Newton, Massachusetts, and she gave me many things, and supposedly these came from Tufts University and perhaps were on a mantel there. That's really all I know about them, and that could be wrong. They always had some felt on the back of them, I guess, so they wouldn't scratch, and it was only yesterday when I decided to bring them that I took the felt off and I saw all of the engraving on the back, so I have no idea what that all means.
APPRAISER:
These tiles were made by the Saturday Evening Girls. Saturday Evening Girls, or S.E.G., which is signed on the back...
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
was a philanthropic organization of sorts, and it was put together in Boston so that young girls had a place to go to learn crafts, to gather together, to read to each other, to dance and so forth. And one of the things that they did that became very popular and lucrative, to some extent, was to make pottery and to make tiles. They made a lot of pottery. They didn't make many tiles. So what we usually see from S.E.G. are little breakfast sets-- little bowls and plates. The tiles that we see are usually the same tiles of special areas in Boston. I've never seen these. These are very rare. They are gorgeous. They're decorated in what is called cuerda seca, and these were tiles to be mounted. If they had been trivet, they would have been glazed around, so they may very well have been mounted in that fireplace surround at Tufts. In the back, they were meant to be different tiles altogether.
GUEST:
Oh...
APPRAISER:
And that was changed, for whatever reason, and so we have two other tiles here, North Street and Washington Street, which were never glazed. But we do see the S.E.G. mark for "Saturday Evening Girls," as well as the date, and the S.G. for "Sarah Gelner," who was one of their very best decorators. Oh, my goodness, how neat! She was with them for over ten years.
GUEST:
Oh, gosh.
APPRAISER:
So these are really spectacular. The value of these S.E.G. tiles has been going up. And the rare ones are extremely collectible. So if I were to have these insured, I would probably do the pair somewhere between $7,500 and $10,000.
GUEST:
Unbelievable.
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