This post is an attempt to unravel the tangled skein that is the production history of the third Cybis portrayal of Cinderella, known as Cinderella ‘Belle of the Ball.’ It reads rather like a mystery novel, complete with unexpected twists and turns. Let’s begin with a quick glance at the first two Cybis Cinderella pieces. Both were open (non-limited) editions.
The first was Cinderella, made from 1960 to 1968; her designer is unknown but may well have been Marylin Chorlton. The blue-shirt version is the one most often seen; the red-shirt version is very rare.
The next was Cinderella at the Ball in 1980. I do know who created her, but the artist was very unhappy with how much Cybis altered her original model and doesn’t want to be publicly identified with this piece. It was produced for three years.
The first mention I found of the third iteration was this short list of new Spring 1990 introductions from Cybis. Here we see design #5068 listed as Cinderella – Golden Anniversary Edition, a limited edition of 1000 priced at $795. Even without a photo, the new design number shows that she is entirely different from the 1960 Cinderella (design #429) and the 1980 Cinderella at the Ball (#4033.)
Seeing this piece listed as a ‘Golden Anniversary’ item was surprising, because the studio had designated – and made a very big deal of – 1989 as the supposed 50th anniversary year. In fact (in a rare departure from their ‘no-decals’ rule) this clearly says 1929-1989:
This special decal was intended for any new 1989 introductions. At one time, I thought that it was only applied to pieces that were physically created during 1989, but it seems as if it may have been applied to all examples of the 1989 introductions, regardless of whether a given piece was created in 1989 or afterward.
But here we have, on a Spring 1990 order form, a ‘Golden Anniversary’ item being introduced the year after the actual Golden/50th Anniversary. Because I had not seen any photo of this new Cinderella, I thought perhaps that she might be wearing a white gown with gold accents. That would be logical, right? The order form was text-only (no photos.)
Fast forward to the studio’s early-2000s website. At that time, there was indeed a Cinderella, Belle of the Ball as an available item. The photo above is the one that was actually on the Cybis website. I immediately noticed that she is damaged: One of the bow tails at the bottom of her bodice lacing is broken off. It seemed odd that the studio would use a damaged piece as their one and only photo! I also noticed that she was described as an Open edition, but because the Cybis website had so many other errors (incorrect photos, wrong or incomplete descriptions, or no photo at all) I assumed that the “Open” was merely another mistake. Was the ‘Golden Anniversary’ version a different colorway than this purple-and-lavender one? Never having seen a photo other than the one above, I had no way of knowing.
In April 2022, I finally acquired a full Cybis price list from 1990. Remember that the studio had shut down at the end of 1989 and didn’t officially re-open until later the following year. This October 1990 price list includes this third Cinderella, under the Children to Cherish collection heading:
Wait, what?!?? It’s definitely the same Cinderella, but now the edition size has been increased to 2500 pieces! This is the first time I have seen the studio make an edition size LARGER than the original declared number. And look at the ‘Year Released’: It says “Golden Anniversary”, which is how the 1989 introductions on the list are also indicated. So was Cinderella, Belle of the Ball actually a 1989 piece even though it wasn’t available to order/buy until Spring 1990??
Well…things are about to get even murkier, folks.
I subsequently acquired this single-sheet Cybis ad/flyer, which has ©Cybis 1990 in the lower right corner. Here we find this Cinderella in two places. The inset image at lower right is next to the 50th Anniversary stamp, and the caption says
Detail shows exquisitely hand painted 24 Karat gold embellishments.
I have zoomed this image as much as technologically possible, and can see no ‘gold embellishments’ in the photo. But hey, it’s a scan of a printed paper, so maybe it just doesn’t show up. Right? Maybe? [*Speaking of errors, can you spot the incorrect word in this ad? The answer is at the end of the post.]
And, it gets crazier.
Look at this snip from a PDF of the March 1993 price list. Here we spot Cinderella, Belle of the Ball – same piece, no question about that – but now she is shown as an OPEN EDITION! This appears to give Cinderella, Belle of the Ball the dubious distinction of being one of only two Cybis pieces that were demoted from a limited edition to an open edition; as explained in this post, the other piece was Jumbles and Friend.
Seeking (and finally finding) Cindy
Until 2019, I had never seen even one Cinderella, Belle of the Ball come up for sale online. A 15-piece lot in the 2019-2020 liquidation sales of the studio’s backstock, by Kamelot Auctions in Philadelphia, contained one.
These are the only two photos that showed her. I could see no gold embellishments on this one either, though I noticed that the front-bow color is pink and at least is not broken! Because there were no photos of the signature areas, I had no idea whether this Cinderella was marked as a limited edition, as a 50th anniversary piece, or was simply signed Cybis as many of the liquidation items were.
Finally, in February 2024 a Cinderella, Belle of the Ball appeared for sale online. The consignor was a former retailer of Boehm, Cybis, Royal Doulton, and other vintage art porcelain items. At long last, I would be able to examine multiple photos and solve the mystery!
The first thing I noticed was that this piece has a purple bow. Knowing that many of the pieces in the liquidation sales were samples or alternate colorways, I had not put much importance on the pink-bow thing (and the scan of the 1990 ad sheet was somewhat overexposed, so that bow could be either pink or purple.)
I looked very carefully at all of the detail photos, searching for any gold ’embellishments’, but found none. Nada. Aucun. Opso. Nichts. Kathólou. Or, in Boleslaw Cybis’ native language: Absolutnie żaden!
And now – drumroll, please – a photo of the signature area. The sculpture number shows that this was a limited edition, and there is the 50th Anniversary decal.
Summarizing Cinderella, Belle of the Ball
I am hoping that over time, additional examples of this design might appear online. For now, based on all of the above facts, we can say that:
- When first introduced, she had a declared limited edition of 1000.
- An unknown quantity (some? many? most? all?) of them were given the 50th Anniversary stamp which the studio’s advertising had previously claimed to be an indication that the design was introduced during 1989 (even though she wasn’t introduced at retail until Spring 1990.)
- The October 1990 price list ‘Year Released’ incorrectly suggests that it was 1989. The retail introduction (retail release) year was 1990, as shown in the order form clearly identifying her as a Spring 1990 item.
- Despite the 1990 ad sheet, there appear to be no “gold embellishments” on these. The 50th Anniversary stamp and gold-paint Cybis signature should not qualify as ‘embellishments in any logical universe. All of the Foxes ‘Chatsworth and Sloane’ have the Cybis signature and sculpture number in gold paint, as do quite a number of other limited edition pieces. ‘Embellished’ has always meant decorated.
- The stated edition size was increased from 1000 to 2500 during the summer of 1990.
- It is impossible to know how many limited-edition examples were made, unless additional numbered examples eventually surface online.
- At some point between October 1990 and March 1993, she was downgraded to being an open (non-limited) edition even though her retail price had increased from $795 to $850.
- I do not have any price lists from 1994. She appears on the Fall 1995/Spring 1996 price list, still as an Open edition, but now priced at $975.
- The price list dated May 1999 translated directly into the newly launched Cybis website. On this price list she is $995. She was definitely advertised as an Open edition during the eight years that the website was actively maintained.
How should we categorize this piece? It definitely spent at least one year (1990) as a limited edition, although how many were of these were marked 50th Anniversary is not known. It is POSSIBLE – because I have no 1991 or 1992 price lists at the moment – that ONLY those 1989/1990 pieces were marked as limited editions and/or 50th Anniversary, and that any dating from 1991 or later are open editions which are neither numbered nor marked. This would explain the Spring 1990 order form describing it as a “Golden Anniversary Edition”; i.e., distinguishing it from later production pieces that would not be numbered nor receive the 50th mark. The discovery of a 1991 price list is key to determining this.
If that was indeed the case, then Cinderella, Belle of the Ball actually has two iterations: a ‘one year only’ limited edition that was numbered and stamped, also also a subsequent open edition starting in 1991 or 1992. My guess would be 1991. What we don’t know is whether they all look identical other than the number-and-stamp. This question can only be resolved if an un-numbered, not-stamped example can be found.
The reason for increasing the edition size from 1000 to 2500 completely eludes me, especially as the studio had already lost so many retailers as of 1990. I believe the increase was probably a result of pure wishful thinking on the studio’s part. If there had been so many initial orders, more of these would have appeared for sale online during the past 34 years! Let’s hope that the magic of eBay will furnish a few more in the not-too-distant future.
[*1990 advertisement error: The word should be sensitively…not “sensitivity”! And don’t even get me started on their 1990s rapid slide into chaos via “collections within collections”; I went into an entire rant about that very subject here.]
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