Antiques Roadshow

GUEST: Well, this was my husband's grandparents'.

(chuckling): We don't exactly know a lot about it other than there was a little piece of paper in it that said "Old."

That's it.

(chuckles) APPRAISER: Pieces of Rookwood are not coming into ROADSHOW as much as they used to.

This would have been one of their earliest series.

This is done in 1883.

The company started in 1880, it was in Cincinnati, Ohio.

This line was referred to as Limoges or Limoges-style.

Limoges is a city outside of Paris that was a huge center for mostly porcelain.

The French makers would have been shown at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876.

And the women who ended up starting Rookwood Pottery and the American art pottery movement in general, would all have been at that exhibition.

And they would have been impressed to see how the Japanese aesthetic was being interpreted by the French.

We have bamboo and swallows in flight, which almost look like bats.

And clouds, which form like a veil.

It's a really sweet piece.

There's something early and a little clumsy about it.

This is earthenware.

We have the mark of Rookwood Pottery, and we have a date of 1883.

This may be the name of the artist, but it's very hard to decipher.

GUEST: Oh.

APPRAISER: So it could have been one of several people doing this, including the founder of Rookwood Pottery, who was a woman...

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: ...and who did this on her own, Maria Longworth Nichols.

It's an important piece.

Any collection, including any museum collection that has any depth in the American art pottery movement, has to have a piece of this.

GUEST: Wow.

(laughs) APPRAISER: Okay, this is in all the best American museums.

GUEST: Wow!

(laughs) That's great, that... (laughs) APPRAISER: A pre-auction estimate these days would probably be $1,000 to $1,500.

GUEST: (laughing): Wow, I was thinking like $200!

That's great.

I love it.

APPRAISER: It's not as popular as it would have been...

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: ...20 and 30 and 40 years ago.

But it is a really important piece of America.

GUEST: Well, that's great.

Thank you so much.

APPRAISER: My pleasure.

GUEST: Yay!

I'm very happy.