Featured Porcelaine Sculptures

I'm off on my own thing here.

The companion piece to Pandora is Psyche, also by Carrier de Belleuse:



She is pouring oil into a small lamp so she can see the features of the lover who comes to her only in the dark of night, something she has been told not to do. It leads to a lot of grief for her.

 

In case it provides a different outlook:

 

It may have been done before the figures came into Ilya's possession. It does look like a liquid with cocoa, cinnamon, some dissolved powder, has been smeared there & wiped off. What would prevent the underside of a Parian piece from being mildly stained? Or perhaps Ilya will find it can be washed off?

 

I found one of the marks (3 dots and slashes) appear on a piece from this thread: https://www.antiquers.com/threads/german-parian-marks-victorian-or-no.2175/

 

The dark marks were there when I acquired them. From what I know, the pieces were at the same house for many years so perhaps just a stain from the wooden shelf.

 

It's not just the staining, it's those lines in the body of that base. This is when you want to be able to heft the things.

Yeah, had a look in Godden, not Minton marks. There's a great many parian makers.

 

Nah. There's no line across a proper 1859 mark and that whole shape is different. Likewise the supposed 1845-50 image one in that second mark. Minton marks are very precise.

 

I don't doubt that the Cupid and Psyche is a copy of the Minton. In addition to the fig leaf, the base is heavier and the modelling a bit simpler - or so it seems to me.

Not so sure about the Pandora. Other examples online say that it should have a Minton stamp. Other than that, the differences between this and those others are very minor and might be down to the production process. What I can't find online is a photo of the bottom of the Minton Pandora, or the marks on it. That image would tell the tale.

 

I read somewhere that several manufacturers used different versions of the incised ermine mark on Parian ware. Can't find it now, sorry.
Many Parian manufacturers didn't mark at all, so that is not unusual.

 

I shared this piece a little while ago - Original by John Bell, 1811-1895, Norfolk, England. The original sculpture was produced in 1839. Minton’s is a softer, flipped version of the Bell’s work.

Really a memento mori - in the folktale, two siblings are left to fend for themselves, die alone in the forest and are covered with leaves by robins. (!)

Marks: Minton parian mark, backward S (1854) cipher, backward B (unidentified cipher), hand incised N. 298 and artist’s mark.

 

@scoutshouse Thank you for sharing! Which one is the Minton mark? And do you have any reference that it can be matched to?

 

Cupid and Psyche are displayed in three museums - I don't know if they were all produced in different scales by the same artist. As noted, the one I'm showing was flipped - possibly not to infringe on the original? IDK...

This piece below started out as a small clay model/maquette by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen and later copied in monumental scale by Lucas Akorn c. 1880.

Dying Lion (The Lucerne Lion)
is a much more exhaustive source than I was able to dig up in 2012!






Then this tiny one came into my hands Hand carved in a form of steatite called lardstone or speck for its resemblance to whale blubber or fat.

I'm a 2-dimensional person - The skill and technology involve in scaling these things really awesome to me! Not to mention the black art of identifying artist's marks in all categories!

 

Just the same as all have provided above (and below): The ermine mark was also incised, so possibly that's where the different stylization(sp) comes from?

I haven't handled lots of Minton, so @Ownedbybear may totally disagree with this ID - as hard as I searched for marks similar to the one I have, I never came across the one with the arrow. I took it to a number of people I consider "experts" and this is what I was told.

I found it very hard to nail down - you need to find a reputable sold item that includes an image of the mark. Skinner sells lots of it, but doesn't include marks; the limited number of images Worthpoint provides often don't allow them to provide marks, apparently.



The "S" cypher below - never found that flower.

 

I have no problem seeing the mark on Pandora & some other pieces as an intermediate form of the arrow of 1845 on its way to the ermine mark. They do look hand incised rather than impressed, which easily accounts for variability among marks & illustrations of marks.

I don't actually see that reversed S on the chart, but maybe the flower is the 1915 mark, once again, hand incised, so not an exact match for the illustration.

I contacted the guy who owns the site where we've been getting the table of date marks. He was kind enough to reply, but said he does not have the expertise to distinguish genuine Minton from copies.

 

Would the reversed S be what is shown as 1854?

 

I considered that. Conceivable, but it really looks more like an ornamental scroll than a letter. If that's the date mark, then the flower is not & the problem then becomes accounting for that one.

 

I had lost track of where the "backward S" was shown in a picture of marks. Just found it again - and I agree, that does not look like the 1854 one in the chart.