Royal Doulton Bowl & Pitcher Set, ca. 1905

Appraised on: August 23, 2008

Appraised in: Hartford, Connecticut

Appraised by: David Rago

Category: Pottery & Porcelain

Episode Info: Hartford, Hour 3 (#1318)

Originally Aired: May 25, 2009

IMAGE: 1 of 3  

Appraisal Video: (2:32)

APPRAISER: The name of this pattern you told me when you brought this in was...

GUEST: It's called Morland.

APPRAISER: M-O-R-L-A-N-D?

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: It's a Royal Doulton pattern.

GUEST: That's correct.

APPRAISER: You've inherited this from your family?

GUEST: Several pieces, and then I was at a country auction years ago and I bought another dozen pieces. I truly don't know the value, because I did look online, but I've never seen this size in this pattern.

APPRAISER: It's particularly beautiful for a pitcher-and-bowl set. A lot of them come into the show, and by and large, pitcher-and-bowl sets, it's toiletware-- it was meant to be used and abused. It wasn't meant to be saved and treasured, and consequently, one of two things happened. Either, number one, it was beaten up over the years and didn't survive intact, or, number two, they're not that good, and most pitcher-and-bowl sets-- and we'll see 50 to 100 pitcher-and-bowl sets every Roadshow-- and they're just not worth more than $50 to $100 with rare exceptions. This is one of the exceptions to that, because you can see, it's much more ornate. This one, for example, has a beautiful center design. It's transfer-decorated earthenware. This is Burslem ware. Burslem is one of the five areas of Staffordshire. When Doulton was first in business, it was a London firm, in Lambeth, which is a region of London. As they expanded, they had concurrently running factories, and Burslem was one of the ones in Staffordshire, primarily known for making patternware such as this. And Doulton really was one of the first companies to do patternware, and they're the ones who were copied, so this is an early 20th-century transfer-decorated pattern showing horse-and-rider scenes in the countryside.

GUEST: Is there any way to know if these two were created together or if it's a marriage?

APPRAISER: There are several ways to know if a bowl-and-pitcher set-- or any set-- has been married. Number one, how consistent are the patterns? Because of this sunflower-like edge, both in the center of the bowl and around the lip of the pitcher, I would say they definitely came together. Let me show you the mark on this piece. This has the Burslem designation. That's the typical Royal Doulton mark, but at the bottom it says "Burslem," which is how we know it's from the Staffordshire factory and not from the Lambeth factory. This is probably a one-in-500 bowl-and-pitcher set and for that, it's worth between $1,000 and $1,500.

GUEST: This will not change my lifestyle.

APPRAISER: When I got into the business almost 40 years ago, bowl-and-pitcher sets were a hot deal, and they've since cooled off quite a bit.