Grand Feu Ceramic Vase, ca. 1914
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GUEST:
Well, my husband bought it in 2009 online, and, uh, we bought it for the, uh, glaze. We love the glaze on it. On the bottom, it says that it's Grand Feu.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
And it has a number.
APPRAISER:
And what did you pay for this?
GUEST:
Uh, $1,500.
APPRAISER:
$1,500. Okay, well, you bought it for the glaze, and that's a really good reason, because this is extraordinary. Uh, it's a piece of Grand Feu pottery from Redlands, California. And what happened is, the potters discovered around the turn of the century that the clay deposits in California in general were among the best in America. So it inspired a whole generation of art potters from around 1900 to about 1920. This is a high-fired piece, "grand feu" means high fire. It's called gres ceramics, G-R-E-S, is gres ceramics, and it means you can fire it at a very high temperature, and consequently, the glaze and the body mature at the same time in the kiln. It's one of the reasons you get these dazzling glaze effects on this. You've got a flambé of four or five colors ending over this beautiful cobalt blue. It's called the sunray glaze. It's one of the glazes they're famous for, and you don't really see it very often. And normally what happens when you see the sunray glaze, the browns flow down so much, the cobalt's almost entirely hidden, and this is one of those rare examples...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
...where you have this feathering of color throughout, and then this uneven drip over the cobalt. It's just a, a really perfect example of one of the rarest of American potteries. They're in business for less than four years. So little information is known that they're not sure if they started in 1912 or 1913. And by 1916, they were pretty much done.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And they mark in some ways the high point of the American art pottery movement, to reach this level of quality, uh, in, in a pot at that time in America. This is very well marked, Grand Feu Pottery, and L.A., California. It's actually just outside of L.A. this was made. And the company was, uh, run by Brauckman, also a mystery. I'm not really sure where he came from or where he went after he was done. He had this brief moment, made some beautiful pots, and then disappeared. In terms of value, you said you paid $1,500 for it.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
At auction, I would estimate this for $10,000 to $15,000 now, on today's market.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, and, and it could well bring more, because it's really that good. The only better example I know of is in the L.A. County Museum with this particular glaze combination.
GUEST:
Well, this is a beautiful piece to look at. Whenever you're feeling a little bit down or blue...
APPRAISER:
(chuckles)
GUEST:
...you look at this, and it changes everything.
APPRAISER:
And then you feel cobalt blue.
GUEST:
Yes, yes.
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