Tiffany-Style Fan Vase
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GUEST:
I went to an estate auction about ten years ago and I saw it and I just fell in love with it. And I turned it over and I saw the signature. I'm not sure if it's a real Tiffany, but it had "L.C.T." and it was numbered. But I just love the vase, and I figured if it wasn't, it's still a beautiful vase.
APPRAISER:
It is a very pretty vase with this beautiful peacock feathering design. It does have a lot of characteristics that we find in glass made by Louis Comfort Tiffany. It has a beautiful shape and form. But unfortunately, it is not a Tiffany, and I want to tell you why.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
I look at the shape, which is an attempt at a Tiffany fan vase. You can see the way it comes up like this. And Tiffany did make some fan vases. However, they didn't quite stop at this. His were more ambitious and broader. The peacock feathers, which are really very lovely, is a motif that he used quite often. And he made many, many peacock vases, and he started to make them in the 1890s. When you watch the Roadshow, a lot of times people say, "Don't bother with the signature" because Tiffany signatures are easily faked and they're often faked. And in this particular instance, that's exactly what has happened. First of all, the placement of the signature-- you would never find the signature above this pontil. Also, you wouldn't find this numerical combination with the "L.C.T." That just would never happen based on the fact that there's no prefix and there's no suffix. So in some ways, I do pay attention to the signature, but I have to say that when I saw you holding it, I recognized immediately that it wasn't. This isn't a Tiffany color, this purple in here.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
You won't ever see anything like that. Did you pay a lot for it?
GUEST:
I paid $150.
APPRAISER:
You know something? It's okay, it's really okay because as a beautiful art glass vase-- it's probably made by a very competent glassmaker-- I would value it at probably $250.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
So you wouldn't lose money, and you loved it and you've gotten something out of it.
Appraisal Details
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