Daum Nancy Perfume Lamp, ca. 1910
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GUEST:
In 1967, my mother and I traveled to Europe, and we found ourselves one afternoon walking through a flea market in Paris. And it was huge. I was taken away by how large it was and what quality of items they had. Mother happened to see this and she said, "Oh, that's so interesting," and she says, "What do you think?" And I said, "I love it," because I'm crazy about winter scenes.
APPRAISER:
What did you call it? What kind of a purpose did it have?
GUEST:
I think as a small lamp.
APPRAISER:
Like a night light, something like this?
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
Well, there's a company of brothers and family members called Daum Brothers in Nancy, France, and they started making general household items, dishes and glassware, etcetera. And then they progressed to art glass, and you can see here the name "Daum." And the bottom of the piece is also marked on the metal, "Inventory 5597," and it says, "Paris." So those are appropriate markings for the piece. It's circa 1910. This is cameo glass and enamel glass and a beautiful winter scene of Holland, Dutch windmills. This isn't too pretty, is it?
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
And so this type of thing was not real hot on the market because it always had this cord hanging out of it. Now, I'm going to remove the lid here, and you'll see under here a place for the bulb.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
But what it's really used for is for perfume, for fragrance. So the perfume is put into the glass vessel, it has a nice hot light bulb in here, and it gives you fragrances through this. Diffuses it. So you have a perfume lamp. Can you tell me what you and your mother paid for this piece?
GUEST:
I have a vague recollection of maybe $50 or $100.
APPRAISER:
I would put a retail price on this of $5,000 to $7,000.
GUEST:
Oh my Lord. That's wonderful.
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