Bought an old teapot for half a million, sold for more than 18 billion VND
A broken teapot bought for £15 has been sold for £575,000 after it was discovered to be one of the first pieces of American porcelain.
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| This teapot, which lost its lid and had its handle broken and had to be reattached, is worth more than 18 billion VND. Source: WOOLLEY AND WALLIS/BNPS |
Specifically, many local newspapers said that a bargain hunter thought that a blue-and-white porcelain teapot with a missing lid and a broken handle was a common type of porcelain and not rare at all.
This teapot, however, was the work of John Bartlam, an English potter who traded his handmade pottery across the Atlantic 250 years ago.
More significantly, Bartlam's business was ended by the American Revolution and hardly any records of his work survive today.
Accordingly, expert Clare Durham, of the Woolley and Wallis auction company in Salisbury, Wiltshire, suspected that this teapot could be a non-British porcelain and upon further research, it was Bartlam's work.
According to the newspaperThe TelegraphThis teapot marks the birth of American porcelain when the country declared that it no longer needed British porcelain, says porcelain expert Clare Durham.
In 2002, four teacups and two saucers were also sold at auction in the Midlands and were later confirmed to be Bartlam’s work. Notably, the patterns on those pieces matched the patterns on this teapot.
An anonymous middle-aged seller said the teapot could be auctioned anywhere from £20,000 to £50,000.
The rare teapot was eventually bought by Mr Rod Jellicoe for £575,000, when he bid on behalf of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it will be displayed.
