I brought some porcelain on ebay which was marked victoria, czechoslovakia and EPIAG, Czechoslovakia. The were listed on ebay as Rosenthal. When i queried it with seller they said the following, is this right?
With reference to your comments regarding authenticity, these are indeed Rosenthal pieces, and we would like to make the following observations. During the period of the Weimar Republic (1929), when these pieces were manufactured, Rosenthal were situated on the border of Bavaria and the Sudetenland (German speaking) part of Czechoslovakia. The Rosenthal company used German citizens in this area to decorate some of the pieces that it produced in exactly the same manner as did Limoges in France and Murano in Italy. Therefore, not all Rosenthal pieces have the maker’s name on them, but the artist’s initials appear on both stamped and unstamped pieces.
Thanks
Paul
Porcelain decoration was a big hobby once, and many more or less talented people took it up as pastime, while others made a little money from it. Next to decorating classes, many ladies also established decoration clubs, etc.
These hobbyist decorators either purchased blanks or near undecorated goods, then (re)decorated them. The maker or brand of their purchases was irrelevant, most folks either decided per mold shape or their available funds. Which means that a hobbyist decorator signature is of course found on items that were created by various manufacturers … simply because the decorator took what he could lay hands on or best fitted his needs.
A seller that then finds a matching decorator mark on the goods of a renown manufacturer and then derives therefrom that EVERY item decorated by the person with the same initials MUST have been made by the same company – [i]no matter which original manufacturer mark it carries![/i] – clearly shows that he has not done his homework or is knowingly misrepresenting items.
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I could go on for hours, explaining incorrect manufacturer or decorator attributions based on signatures included in transfer decorations as well as various forms of second-quality decorations created by the so-called ‘Hausmaler’, but that would lead too far and has nothing to do with your items.
The origin of your items was explained in my previous post; an explanation for the same initials on items from various manufacturers was given here.
Seems that the seller does not want to discuss this matter further. The old-but-true ‘buyer beware’ note sounds ironic, I know. But we all have to start somewhere and every collector or even ‘expert’ at one time or the other had a similar encounter.
Don’t let that put you off 😉
I got this in my email, i’ll attach the 3 pics…:
“Hi,
As promised, I’ve taken time out from a busy schedule to go through some aspects of the Rosenthal marking system.
The first photograph attached displays four pieces of Rosenthal, taken from our stock. The tray has a Rosenthal stamp and the initials ‘MJ’, representing the name of the artist. This piece has been manufactured at the central Rosenthal factory and the artist has produced the design on the premises.
The second photograph displays the larger of the two-handled pots. It has been placed upside down on the tray and you will see that it is initialled with the same style ‘MJ’ and has been dated as 1929. This pot was made as a blank at the Rosenthal factory, then sent out to where the artist undertook the paintwork, a practice which was and still is common all over Europe, in the manufacture of pieces such as Murano glass and Limoges porcelain. When the painted work was returned to the Rosenthal factory, it was fired without the addition of the Rosenthal stamp. However, irrespective of the fact that there is no Rosenthal stamp, this piece is far more valuable than any of the other items in the first photograph, as it is hand painted in a very small run and is dated.
The third object (trinket box) has been generically produced and although it is hand painted it is the work of more than one artist and for this reason does not display the artist’s mark. However, the entire work, both painting and manufacture of the work, was undertaken at the Rosenthal factory and has been stamped with the Rosenthal logo.
The final object, the smaller of the two pots is not particularly well made but for some reason Rosenthal allowed it to go out into the market place, but they did so without giving it any mark at all.
I hope this has allayed your doubts because this is the last communication that I intend to make on the matter. Regards.
David King” [img size=314]https://kovels.com/media/kunena/attachments/legacy/images/IMG_1741.JPG[/img]