Chips & Cracks in Majolica Pottery

Video Transcript

"When your collecting the majolica your going to find that because of the way its fired and the fact that it continues to dry that your going to see more pieces out there that are chipped and cracked than good ones. So it's not that difficult you can find good pieces but I wouldn't be surprised that 9 out of 10 pieces that you find out there are going to have chips in them and that's a perfect example in a cup your going to see. A lot of this brittle chipping across the tops and the bottoms also but thats also a good example of some chipping and I can show you some where there's were some chipping, and people has tried to restored these and done a very poor job. Right here on the top of this pitcher it was chipped and broken and someone has tried to remold and recolor this surface on here and they haven't done a good job. So that's a really something to watch out for that people are not very good at restoration that are attempting to fix these pieces. They sometimes make them look worst than they do if they just leave them in there original condition, this is a really poor job of restoration on a really nice piece of majolica. So that's a consideration to watch out for when your picking up a piece this chipping here you can see is not unusual for a piece this early it has chips around the corners, here all the way around the corners. It's a heavy lead glaze but and the piece is very heavy and the bottom you can see its in a really nice shape but the top has a lot of chipping. So that's something else to consider here you see where the glaze is starting to ware off on your pitcher here where someone has actually tried to repair again. They didn't do a very good job and the glues that they used are all discolored on the inside pitcher so thats another example of not a very good job of restoration. If your going to have these things restored you have to do it with a professional."