Q & A

M.L. from Shediac, N.B writes:

One time I was watching the Antiques Roadshow and there was a creamer and sugar, blue in color, with silver overlade made by the Limoges factory, sent to Barnaby & co, France to be decorated. It was signed C.M. Now the appraiser gave it a low value, $500 U.S, but said if he could prove that they were painted by Claude Monet they would be worth a lot more.

The next time I saw the same set it was on a show called "At The Auction" and an independent appraiser from Christie’s, who had done some research, said he had talked to the most renowned person on Claude Monet and he said they were painted by Claude Monet commissioned for some friends and said there were only two sets ever made. They are art deco or art nouveau in style and gave them a new appraisal of $35000.00 U.S and said they could very well exceed that. Two years later, I went to a local auction and saw the same set which would be like the second set. My question is, is it really the second set and if it is, is the value I remember correct?

If you do not know, could you please try to let me know who would be the most renowned person on Claude Monet so i can try to contact him to see if i could find out some information? Thank you!

We asked Bill Kime to respond:

Amateur decoration is quite commonly found on Limoges and other continental European porcelain blanks. Dating mainly from about 1895-1930, these sometimes quite accomplished and attractive wares typically were painted by artistic ladies as a hobby or craft, just as they might have embroidered or decorated other decorative or utilitarian objects for the home.

In much the same sort of way and in an interesting parallel, I suppose, in 1898, Claude Monet designed a porcelain dinner service for his own use in his house at Giverny. He painted a simple white plate by hand with yellow banding and blue borders from which a service was made by Godin & Arhendfeld at Limoges. To the best of my knowledge, that was the limit of Monet's work with ceramics, though I believe that pieces from the original service are being reproduced at Limoges today.

The cream jug and sugar basin that you have there appear to be more typical amateur-decorated Limoges blanks, though I can't clearly identify the factory marks from your photographs, dating from around 1920-25. I'm afraid I don't think they have anything to do with Claude Monet, who, then an old man and battling ill health, was painting water lilies at the time. Depending upon where you found them and in the context of any family history that might go with them, I'd expect that they were decorated here in Canada or in the United States by someone's great grandmother, or perhaps by a friend, with initials C.M.

There are collectors of amateur-decorated china, but the prices they'll pay are usually modest. This cream and sugar would hold considerably more sentimental value for C.M.'s descendants, but often that connection has been lost. I'd expect them to sell for between fifty and a hundred dollars.

That's my opinion, but just in case you'd like to research the possibility of a Monet attribution further, Daniel Wildenstein is perhaps foremost among authorities on the life and work of Claude Monet, having published the accepted standard work, a four volume biography and catalogue raisonné, at Lausanne and Paris in 1985.