The original Connoisseur of Malvern studio existed for 15 years, starting in 1979 and operating under the ownership and direction of Diane Lewis and her husband Terry. Because the studio changed ownership and staff after it was sold, collectors of Connoisseur of Malvern may (and should) want to differentiate between the original-studio and post-studio-sale products.…
In the world of art porcelain, it was almost unheard-of for studios to give credit to the individual artists who actually created the sculptures; there was an almost universal policy of forced anonymity. Normally the only name that appeared on a studio’s output was that of the studio itself, typically that of its founder or…
There were some items made by Connoisseur that don’t quite fit into any of the categories I’ve set up, so they’re collected here under the heading of decorative eggs, ornaments, and “oddments” – for lack of a better term! Decorative Eggs Connoisseur produced at least two Faberge-style eggs, i.e., ones where the top half opens…
Although Disney characters are hardly the first things that come to mind when one thinks of the Connoisseur of Malvern porcelain studio, there were a surprising number of such designs, all produced during the 1990s. They fall into two categories: the editions based on classic Disney movies, and the series connected to a venture called…
The original Connoisseur studio created two types of hand-painted porcelain plaques: flat-painted and dimensional. All the dimensional plaques are botanical subjects and were produced in a variety of sizes and editions. They are shown below in chronological order by introduction year. The first Connoisseur plaques were issued in 1981 which was the second year of…
The porcelain sculptures depicting people (human figures) were the area in which the Cybis studio typically bested not only their cross-town rival, Boehm, but the other USA studios as well. A case can be made for Ispanky but, after all: Laszlo Ispanky was at the Cybis studio before he decided to launch his own. In…
Almost all of the porcelains shown in this second part of my Cybis retrospective date from 1960 and later. These all have the ‘look’ that most people associate with items from Cybis, Boehm, Ispanky, and the host of other studio names that populated the burgeoning 1960s-1980s art porcelain collector market. Cybis Birds (1950s through the…
The two largest art porcelain studios operating in the USA – both in Trenton, NJ, and both now defunct – were Cybis and Boehm. I’ve already profiled Boehm’s satellite studio (Boehm of Malvern) in this Lost Porcelain Studios series, and will be doing likewise for ‘Trenton Boehm’ later this year. I hadn’t originally planned to…
The Chatsworth Lady 