Natzler Bowl & Vase, ca. 1960
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GUEST:
These are some ceramic pieces that are by a couple named the Natzlers. And one of them did the bodies and one of them did the glazes. I inherited them from my uncle who was a designer in San Francisco.
APPRAISER:
They're such beautiful examples. And I saw them and I just popped. Otto and Gertrud Natzler came from Austria and they had their first studio there in 1935. And before getting married and moving here in 1938, they exhibited in Paris at the Universal Exhibition and won a silver medal. So, by the time they got to Los Angeles in 1938, they were already quite established. As you mentioned, one of them threw the body and the other one did the glazes. Gertrud was the patient thrower. She was amazing. These vessels are so fine and so thin. They are so perfectly executed, all of them. You still see some ridge marks in them, which are there on purpose. The forms are so exquisite. I have seen a lot of pieces of Natzler. And they're never a dog in them. Either they didn't produce them or they threw them away when they weren't happy. And they were quite prolific, those two. They made, I think, a total of about 25,000.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
Their glazes are fantastic. And they came up with just about 2,500 different glazes. And you have two very fine ones here today. The small one, an oxblood glaze, it's a gorgeous example. But this one. This crystalline glaze is very rare. Perhaps it was rare because it was difficult to fire properly. The crystals are so well placed throughout, and they're large. It's like looking at the bottom of the ocean and looking at the sky. It's such a fine example. Now, there are numbers underneath.
GUEST:
Exactly, and I have no idea what...
APPRAISER:
The numbers are theirs so that they knew when they would have made the pieces. They were registered.
GUEST:
Oh, fascinating.
APPRAISER:
The original pieces have these numbers, so you're not to remove that.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
Prices, at auction-- conservative estimates. The bowl, $3,000 to $4,000. The bottle-shaped vase, $7,000 to $10,000.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
Yes.
GUEST:
Really?
APPRAISER:
So, the two of them together, about $10,000 to $13,000 or so.
GUEST:
Oh, that's incredible. I'm stunned. I mean, that's amazing. I had no idea. Wow.
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