The 18th century teapot, which was found at a house in Little Aston, on the outskirts of the city, smashed through its guide price of £2,000 when it went under the hammer yesterday. Auctioneer Charles Hanson said the auction at the Mackworth Hotel in Derbyshire was “pure theatre” with a fight to the end to own the prized piece of porcelain.
“We had a telephone bidder in America and a bidder in London battling it out right to the end,” he said. “It was pure theatre, the bids went straight through the roof. It actually stopped at £65,000, and just as the gavel was about to fall a bid of £66,000 came in at the very last moment.”
The decorative orange painted teapot, which is thought to have been made by Josiah Wedgwood in around 1765, eventually sold for £69,000 to the Californian bidder. It is emblazoned with the slogans “Success to Trade in America” and “No Stamp Act” – a political protest against the unpopular Stamp Act of 1765.
The Stamp Act was a tax imposed by the British Parliament on the colonies in America to help pay for British troops stationed in North America following victory in the Seven Years War. The tax was met with fury in the colonies and set in motion protests which led eventually to the infamous Boston Tea Party and the American War of Independence.
Mr Hanson said he thought the teapot’s political significance was behind the whopping sum it fetched at auction.
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