Antiques Roadshow guest gobsmacked by vases More than I anticipated

Antiques Roadshow: John Axford values a pair of vases

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A recent episode of the classic BBC show saw ceramics specialist John Axford looking at a pair of vases the guest had brought along for the Antiques Roadshow episode, which was filmed in Wells, Somerset. He informed the owner guest that the vases were copies, but his valuation of £2,500 left the guest stunned as he admitted he had expected it to be much lower.

“This is a really interesting pair of vases. But do you think they’re copies?” John inquired.

“It’s quite possible,” the guest replied. “My wife thinks they may well be copies.”

“They are copies, but what they’re copies of is Chinese transitional porcelain,” John explained.

“These are Dutch Delft pottery made in the middle of the 17th century.

“When we look at the vases and the decoration, there are so many elements that are copied directly from the Chinese.

“This swirling wave pattern – directly copied from mid-17th-century Chinese porcelain, as is this willow tree, the way it drops.

“These are all identifying features for mid-17th century Chinese porcelain, but here they are on Dutch pottery, not porcelain.

“During that period in China, there was a wonderful flourishing of blue and white porcelain particularly, where suddenly, instead of doing very formal designs for the Imperial Court, the potters were making for the middle classes, for the scholars, and they started illustrating stories.

“Things like the Water Margin and the Romance of the Western Chamber.”

“Would they have had a use or is the shape purely decorative?” the owner asked.

“These ones, the shape would be entirely decorative,” John confirmed before asking: “Where did you get them?”

“My wife’s parents were hoteliers,” the guest replied. “They gave them to us and when we got them, they had corks in the top and they had light fittings and shades, and so we took them off. [We have had them] since 1976.”

“Well, if there were lamps, fortunately, they haven’t been drilled here in the bases,” John commented.

“But there’s one other place to look for things that were lamped.

“Sometimes, just above the rim of the foot, there’s a hole drilled in for a wire to come out there.

“They’re fine, they’re in super condition. Okay, there’s a little bit of wear here, but they lamped them well.”

He continued: “I think, I mean… these date from the time of Sir Isaac Newton.

“I think it’s just wonderful. In order to make them white, they add this tin oxide into the glaze to make it a white glaze

because it’s a buff-coloured pottery, you can see that at the top of the rim here.

“It’s trying to make them whiter, trying to make them look like the very valuable and precious Chinese porcelain.”

Getting round to the all-important valuation, John explained: “They’re a pair, they’re a proper pair, they’re 300 years old.

“They’re in really good condition, and that’s so important. I think at auction we’re looking at about £2,500.”

Shocked, the guest responded: “Gosh that is more than I anticipated!”

“Super things,” John remarked. “Thank you very much for bringing them in.”

Antiques Roadshow airs Sundays from 8pm on BBC One.

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