Teapot of gold for two

Press, 24 July 1986, Page 25

Teapot of gold for two

A “nutty” teapot which an auction house in Chester valued at £6O ($172) has been sold in London for £36,000 ($103,270). And the way in which it made its leap from use as a vase to artistic rarity borders on the farcical.

The pot was taken to Phillips in Chester in early March. Its owners did not want to sell: they had been keeping wild flowers in their curiously shaped teapot for years and wanted it valued for the insurance man.

The man they saw (Phillips "can’t remember” his name), was not impressed. The pot was a funny lozenge shape, it had a curious hole running from one side to the other, and at its base were four unsightly spindly legs. The couple left after getting his verdict.

Minutes later the Phillips man mentioned the pot to Nicholas Birchall, a more senior colleague. Bells rang in Birchall’s head and he put a call through to the firm’s specialist in London,

Keith Baker. Baker was on the phone: Birchall called a second time. And a third. When he finally got through, 20 minutes later, he got a better reception than expected. “My god!” said Baker. “If it’s what I think it is, we’ve got to get those people back. Stop them going to Sotheby’s.” The hapless nameless valuation chap was sent out to scour the streets of Chester in search of the couple. Amazingly, he found them. But had they been

to Sotheby’s? They had. “And I suppose,” said the man with no name, “they told you it was worth ...” “That’s right,” the couple broke in, “ £4O- £6O ($ll5 to $172), same as you.” Later that day, Baker spoke to the couple over the telephone and they carefully described the pot. He became excited. The pot is a unique example of the work of Christopher Dresser, a nineteenth-century designer and writer on the decorative arts who, unlike Ruskin and Morris, enjoyed the implications of the Industrial Revolution for art.

No other example of the teapot was known, though a drawing of it has been published. Baker valued it at £BOOO ($2295) and the couple decided to sell. They could live with a cheaper and less weird vase. But even then the drama was

By

PETER WATSON,

not over. When the pot came up for sale at Phillips the bidding, which started at £3,000 ($8605) went on and on. At £24,000 ($68,846), by which time the couple’s Cheshire grin was wider than the Wirral, a new bidder entered the contest. This was Andrew Patrick of the Fine Art Society in Bond Street, London, and a noted collector of Dresser items. After £30,000 ($86,058) the bidding was down to two people. At £35,000 ($100,400) the other bidder, who had been in since £3OOO, ($8605) withdrew. It was knocked down to Patrick for £l,OOO ($2868) more. The nutty pot, as Patrick called it, is now on show at the society next to a cake baked in the same shape. This has been presented to Patrick by other dealers who admire his pluck and think he should have his pot and eat it.

London “Observer”