fish bowl.

[Stan]

Hi Peter, I watched an antique show on TV, a women had a large fish bowl,  I could tell was early republic at the most, I would have dated it to mid 20th century, it had the double swirls decoration that did not come into play until the 20th century and the inside of the bowl was decorated as much as the outside, the colors also were very bright colors, they said that it was mid 19th century to late 19th century and priced it at $8000.00 to $9000.00 she bought it at an auction for $35.00, I was amazed that they had dated it and priced it the way they did, thank you for giving me the right knowledge and the correct way to tell age on Porcelain, I have a long way to go but thanks again, I will never look at porcelain  that way I used to before I found your web site.
In the past everything I purchased, I was told was authentic until I had the experts look at it and tell me different, now I can judge for my self simply by applying knowledge of design, porcelain age signs and shape, there are many other factors that I have to learn especially to day, I was told by Bonhams expert appraisers that the new fakes are almost impossible to detect.

[peterp]

Thanks for your nice comment, Stan. This should actually be on a testimonial page!
It is amazing that you could attain this level of understanding in such a short time. Just read your comment in another post regarding the seams. This proves that your spirit of learning for sure is a great driving force. I now of people who have been collecting for ten, twenty years and their related knowledge is much inferior. My compliments...

As to the possible incorrect attribution, it happens all the time. We are not perfect and must never forget that age and authenticity evaluation is not an exact science. With increased experience and theoretical knowledge the ratio of correct evaluations increases, but it will never be 100%. As somebody here says, we can never be completely sure of our conclusions because we were not there, when the items were made, in the past.  :-)

I occasionally watch a Chinese antiques roadshow program via Internet. Recently one of the researchers presented one vase as Canton enamel export porcelain. It pretty sure looked yo me like a 20th century item to me! These are very well known, top level museum researchers, each one researching only his own specialty. This one is researching Chinese porcelain only, with many decades of experience.
But I recognize that the Chinese sometimes have less knowledge of export porcelain decorations, due to lack of interest in the past, or insufficient information. They sometimes need to look at items abroad to gain knowledge about their ancient domestic products! On the other hand, the same researcher thought of another item that was shown as being incorrect, saying that 1st tier auction houses in the west sell it as genuine...just another reminder that nobody is perfect.

This only proves that our own knowledge is the best guarantee that we get what we want.

[Stan]

All the thanks goes to you Peter, as you know before I found your web site I could not tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese porcelain, your site is a great site to learn, it entices you to dig in and study; Stan.

[calder]

I second that.
Many thanks