Meissen and Derby Figurines - Matching? But With Different Pottery Marks

by Kathy
(Devon)

Meissen and Derby Figurines - Matching? But With Different Pottery Marks:- Having just read your response to a really interesting query from one of your subscribers with regards to the Meissen trademark I am hoping that you have a spare moment to ponder over my pics!

I have two figurines and wonder whether you could help identify the make and a possible value. The first figurine of a boy has two blue swords on the trademark on the underside of the figurine - could this be a Meissen?

The other figurine has, as far as I can make out the emblem of a crown and the word - DERBY underneath. Too be honest both pieces look as though they are a pair but the markings are so very different!

Hope you can help

Kathy

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Meissen and Derby Figurines - Matching? But With Different Pottery Marks

Peter (admin) says:-

Hi Kathy

Interesting submission, thank for starting this thread.

Matching? Perhaps I am looking at them the wrong way, and I am not seeing them right, but they look like chalk and cheese to me. The two photos are both similar in size & resolution, taken from similar angles but, my goodness how they tell different stories.

The girl is utter quality - you can just see it in every twist and turn of the modellers tool and in her face (in her exquisite expression), and in every detail of the decoration. This is made by a masterful company who cared about their work and were very good at it. I can't see the mark well enough to confirm if it is a standard mark of Derby Porcelain, but this item is high quality whoever made it.

Now onto the boy. Perhaps I need glasses and am not looking right, or the photo is too low res for me to see properly, but all I can see are banana fingers covering an oddly painted face which seems to have disappeared. Maybe it's there in real life? I have never seen the composition of a figurine where the hand totally covers the face in this manner. This is so amateurish in terms of composition of how a well made figurine should be that were I to suggest this today in a product development today, the white coats would be sent for immediately.

The other thing I have never seen is a genuine Meissen mark looking like this one. I an NOT an expert in Meissen marks or any other kind of mark for that matter, but Meissen marks have a standard subtlety which can only be hand done by somebody very practised at it and very good. If this is a genuine Meissen mark then either they had been drinking too many steins, or they passed it to an apprentice and went out to lunch, or it was just a bad day at the office (which does happen).

So perhaps the photo you uploaded doesn't do the poor boy justice, but from where I am sitting there is no matching going on. Now, must go and watch my daughters DVD of beauty and the beast.

For general free advice on how to research your collection, Peter wrote this page:

value of antiques.

My vintage and antique china values page

H.E.