Damaged teapot sells for £16,500

A DAMAGED Sevres teapot, dated 1833, and owned by an Alcester man, has sold for over £16,500 against an estimate of £150 in a local saleroom.

The Sevres hard paste porcelain teapot decorated with monkeys and standing at only 16 centimetres tall, was sold to a bidder from France on the internet.

Kingham and Orme’s auction of Antiques and Collectables was held at the Lifford Hall in Broadway on Saturday 17th June.

Sevres porcelain was made notably for royalty and the aristocracy and auctioneer and valuer George Kingham recognised it as being something 'rather special' but felt that the handle, which at some point had been broken and repaired, would adversely affect the price.

The teapot was brought into Kingham and Orme’s Broadway office for valuation by a local person who rejected George’s valuation for auction of £800 to £1,000 by saying he ‘just wanted it gone’, and instructed the auctioneer to add a reserve of just £150.

The teapot was hotly contested by bidders worldwide, on the phone and on the internet, but was won by a bidder in France and so will soon be on its way back to the country in which it was originally made.