Rod Jellicoe, bidding for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, secured a 1760s John Bartlam teapot at a Woolley & Wallis auction in London for £575,000, after the piece was identified as one of only seven surviving Bartlam porcelains.
The teapot, originally purchased by a private collector in 2016 for just £15 at a Midlands auction, had been thought to be Isleworth pottery and was missing a lid and a broken handle.
Clare Dunham of Woolley & Wallis spotted the distinctive blue‑and‑white palm tree motif and under‑glaze decoration, linking it to Bartlam’s South Carolina factory at Cain Hoy in the 1760s.
The auction house had set a £10,000‑£20,000 estimate, expecting a peak of £50,000, yet bidding surged to £460,000 before the buyer’s premium pushed the final hammer price to £575,000.
The teapot, 9 cm high and 17.5 cm across, is now the only known Bartlam teapot and the earliest documented American‑made porcelain; it will join the Met’s Gallery 723 and be displayed in its new exhibition on early American ceramics.