Chinese Vases, ca. 1930
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GUEST:
About 15 or 20 years ago, I, uh, went into a church rummage sale, and I, I just noticed these quite quickly, and I, I was drawn to them, decided to buy them.
APPRAISER:
Okay. What did you pay at the rummage sale?
GUEST:
I paid, I believe, $20.
APPRAISER:
This particular shape is a shape that developed in China. It's derived from bronze ritual vessels made roughly around 1000 BC, and it's a form called a hu, H-U. We're going to look at the underside, and we see that there is this iron red.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And it's a six-character mark that says it was made during the reign of the Qianlong emperor.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
1735 to 1796.
GUEST:
Are you serious?
APPRAISER:
That's what it says.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
However, we also have... This right here is a particular color that was favored by the empress of China, the de facto empress, whose name was Cixi, who reigned toward the lend, end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century. And she loved this kind of color combi, combination of aubergine and turquoise.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
And so that's a clue as to what kind of date we're looking at. So we have a conflict.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
One of the other things that we look to for dating is the color of the blue. 20th century is more common for that kind of coloration than earlier periods.
GUEST:
I see, okay.
APPRAISER:
So, what we see from the combination of the enamel decoration, the way that the scenes are drawn, you have something that dates from the 20th century. Do you want to hazard a guess what these might be worth?
GUEST:
Maybe $300 or $400?
APPRAISER:
I think a little bit more. More like about $600 to $900.
GUEST:
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER:
At auction. And you paid?
GUEST:
I paid $20.
APPRAISER:
I think that's pretty good. (laughs)
GUEST:
Yeah, I do, too, I'm happy.
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