Painted by gifted amateur, vase value dips recently

Q. I've enclosed pictures of a vase that has been in my wife's family for more than 70 years. It is 19½ inches high and 14 inches wide at the handles. It is decorated with completely different images on either side that appear to be hand-painted. It is also richly trimmed in gold and marked “Limoges W.G. & C. France.” I would like to know the age and replacement value of the piece.

A. Before discussing this item, we would like to take care of some business: We opened a group of letters today and were sad to have to discard a number of them because they had no enclosed photographs or the images were too fuzzy for us to form an opinion. We have not made this point in some time, so now we will reiterate: We cannot answer any question without a clear, in-focus photograph and this is a rule set in stone.

Fortunately, you have enclosed several nice photographs of his item, and if we were just to look at the photos and not examine the mark, we would say that this rather large and imposing vase was manufactured in a style popular during the third quarter of the 19th century (1850 to 1875). The mark, however, tells a different story.

Variations of this often-seen backstamp were in use between 1891 and 1932 by the Limoges, France-based William Guerin Company, which reportedly succeeded the Utzschneider porcelain factory. William Guerin (1838-1912) had worked at Utzschneider in the 1870s before becoming the factory's owner at an unspecified date.

One important twist is that this particular mark was only used on the company's “white wares,” which are sometimes called “blanks” because they left the factory undecorated. Literally tons of these white wares were shipped to the United States, where they were favorites with china painters.

This is always an issue with Limoges china. The most valuable pieces were either made and decorated in the factory or made in the factory and decorated by a French professional decoration company or an American one (such as Pickard China in Wisconsin).

In either case, there should be two marks on the bottom of the vase to tell who made the porcelain and who did the decoration. (Guerin used a different mark on its wares decorated in-house.) Because there is only one mark on this item, we must infer that a gifted amateur painted this vase.

This is clearly demonstrated by the romantic scene in a garden, which looks like two women getting frisky, but the feminine figure standing behind the seated woman is actually wearing a military-style hat and is supposed to be a man. In any event, the floral decoration on the front is extremely well done, as are the gilded handles and raised gold work on the vase's neck.

We believe the particular variation of the mark found on the vase in today's question came into use between 1891 and 1900, and this suggests that the piece was 40 to 50 years old when it came into the possession of your family. The large size of this example is a big plus, and the floral painting is above average.

Some years ago, this attractive piece would have been valued in the $2,500-$3,000 range for insurance purposes. But in the current market, that value has dropped by more than half.

Ÿ Contact Helaine Fendelman and Joe Rosson at Treasures in Your Attic, P.O. Box 18350, Knoxville, TN 37928 or via e-mail at treasures@knology.net.