1914 Durant Kilns Tray with Base
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GUEST:
I grew up on a sugarcane plantation. My stepfather passed away, and this piece was left to me. I went on the Internet recently, about last week, and pulled up "Durant" and what I found out was that these pieces he had done in Europe in the year of 1914.
APPRAISER:
These pieces are both signed Durant, and they are both dated 1914.
GUEST:
Yes, correct.
APPRAISER:
The name of the potter was Leon Volkmar. His father was also a potter. His name was Charles Volkmar. And Charles studied in France, studied painting and pottery, and came back here and set up business with his son in Metuchen, New Jersey. And after a while, the father and the son split up. And the son set up his own pottery, Durant Kilns, in Bedford Village, New York. And he did this with a woman called Jean Durant Rice.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Jean was in charge of doing a lot of the throwing of the pots.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And Leon would work on glazes and the concept of glazes.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And so what we see, usually, of Leon's works, which were completely different from his father's works, are these beautiful glazes, which are very Persian looking, and almost all of his glazes are like that. And they worked very hard to come up with these gorgeous glazes, which are usually crackled and darkened and either in a lovely Persian blue like this or in an eggplant, which they called aubergine.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
In white... and there's a couple more colors.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
What I particularly like about this piece is that it comes on a base.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
This alone, not so much value. But with the base, that's really cool. The base is also earthenware and has a different kind of Persian glaze, that one being matte gold. There are very few of these. Maybe another one is known like this with this base.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
So it's really quite rare.
GUEST:
My goodness.
APPRAISER:
Now, the value of most of these glazed items has not gone up in the last ten or 20 years, and they're difficult to sell, but what's special about this is that it is a two-part piece and that it has this great Egyptian revival base with the Sphinx. As an auction estimate, I would easily put $1,000 to $2,000 on it.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
And if you wanted an insurance value, maybe more on the $2,000 side.
GUEST:
I'm very surprised! Thank you so very much.
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