1880 Celia Thaxter Hand-painted Vase
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APPRAISER:
This is a really colorful, interesting vase. Tell me about it.
GUEST:
Sunday, which was Mothers' Day, my daughter gave it to me, and it came from her husband's grandmother's grandmother.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
And came down through the family. That's all I know; I don't know anything else about it.
APPRAISER:
And so what did your family think about it?
GUEST:
My granddaughter wanted to make mud pies in it, but...
APPRAISER:
Oh, well, sounds fun to me. (laughs)
GUEST:
(laughs)
APPRAISER:
Do you like it? Were you happy with it?
GUEST:
No, it's ugly.
APPRAISER:
It's ugly, okay.
GUEST:
It's ugly, yes.
APPRAISER:
Why, why do you say that?
GUEST:
It looks cheap.
APPRAISER:
That's a perfectly fair thing to say.
GUEST:
(laughs)
APPRAISER:
The vase itself is pottery. This, quite frankly, is a very poor-quality pottery vase. But it's very well-painted. It's very colorful.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And it's hand-painted. And it's got these wild roses on it, thorny branches, butterflies. And then we've got this wonderful bumblebee...
GUEST:
Mm.
APPRAISER:
...and a dragonfly. And then right here, we have a few lines of poetry and a woman's name: "Celia Thaxter, 1880." The lines of the poem read: "O cup of the wild rose "curved close to hold odorous dew, "What thought do you hide in your heart? O, would that I knew!" Celia Thaxter was born in 1835 in New Hampshire.
GUEST:
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER:
Uh, when she was 16 years old, she married her tutor, who was 11 years older than her, Mr. Levi Thaxter, and she had three children. And she had, was somewhat educated. She came from a, a nice family...
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
...in New England, and she lived in Massachusetts with her husband. And she became a very well-known and respected American poet.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
Many books of her poetry were published. She knew lots of famous people. She knew Emerson, she knew Thoreau, she knew Longfellow, and so she was really an important poet in her own time.
GUEST:
Wow, that's good.
APPRAISER:
She lived mostly remotely, in Maine, on islands, and her father had a hotel named Appledore House. And she lived there most of her life, a, away from her husband. She wrote lots of poetry about the sea. She loved nature and flowers. But another thing she's known for is painting on pottery and porcelain.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
And she always did floral subjects. She is known as being part of the early Arts and Crafts movement in America. Now, it's really hard to value this. I, I, I could find some auction records for some of her hand-painted pieces.
GUEST:
Mm.
APPRAISER:
But this far exceeds the quality of any of the others, and none of the others have this poetry. I think a retail price would probably be somewhere in the $3,000 to $5,000 range.
GUEST:
It's not so ugly anymore.
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm, yeah, well, you know...
GUEST:
(laughs)
APPRAISER:
You still don't have to like it.
GUEST:
It can grow on you.
(both laugh)
APPRAISER:
It could bring more than that.
GUEST:
Wow. I never would've thought.
APPRAISER:
Who would've thought?
GUEST:
This ugly vase.
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