Isn’t it odd how one mystery can lead to another, entirely different, one? Such was the case with a puzzling single piece of Cybis that surfaced some months ago. It was among a private collection being liquidated by the family of an enthusiastic collector who also knew the studio owners personally from the 1950s onward. [...]
Author: The Cybis Archive
Everything you ever wanted to know about Cybis porcelain, in one place: cybisarchive dot com (This is not a commercial site, and there are no ads or pop-ups. Ever.)
Visual Index of Cybis Porcelain Human Figures and Busts
If you have not been able to identify a Cybis human-figure sculpture because you do not know its name and thus cannot find it in the Name Index, this page should be able to help. IMPORTANT! BEFORE YOU EXAMINE THE VISUAL INDEX, PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR FIGURE IS NOT SHOWN [...]
Cybis ‘First Flight’, Times Four (and a half)
One of the fascinating aspects of chronicling Cybis Porcelain sculptures is how often a piece that appears simple and straightforward can turn out to have a complicated ‘life story.’ Take, for example, the one known to most collectors as First Flight. There are four known versions of this design – if versions is indeed the [...]
A Cybis Porcelain Fish…er, Bull…Story
One of my research forays earlier this year made me aware of an article published by a Florida newspaper regarding a circa-1960s Cybis sculpture: their Bull ‘God of the Thunderbolt.’ On close examination, however, the content turns out to be what used to be called a 'fish story' – or, in today’s parlance, “fake news.” The [...]
Should You Insure Your Cybis?
Occasionally I am asked whether a collection, or a particular example, of Cybis porcelain should be insured. Several decades ago, my answer would have been “yes”; nowadays, it is an equivocal “it depends...” Let’s take a look at the available options using a limited-edition example: the Eagle Dancer. It retailed for $4000 in 1984, and [...]
‘The Phoenix’ – An Unusual Cybis Bird Head
Every now and then something utterly unexpected from the Cybis studio comes to light, such as the discovery of a very unusual limited edition that was available for a relatively short time. (Some of this content originally appeared as a previous Archive post that described this sculpture as a gallery-exclusive special-event piece. However, official Cybis [...]
Quacking Up Over Cybis Ducks
It was rather a surprise when I recently realized that between the Cybis and Cordey studio operations, they produced 15 ducks in various designs and iterations from the early 1950s until the end of the 1980s. I honestly hadn’t thought that ducks were that big of a deal at Cybis, but they actually outnumber the [...]
Cybis Madonna Busts From the 1950s
Because my original 1950s-madonnas post has become so extensive, I decided to spin off the busts and torso (non-full-figure) pieces into this separate post. The same comments apply for these as for the full figures, including that: almost all of the 1950s religious pieces were cast by Cybis from molds that they purchased from companies [...]
Cybis Artist Profile: Harry Burger
Cybis sculptures that were designed by freelance artist Harry Burger are perhaps the easiest to identify, even though his name never appeared on any of them. He had a particular style that sets his pieces apart as soon as one knows what to look for – whether the item in question was produced by Cybis [...]
‘Birth/Nativity at Lowicz’ Mother and Baby by Cybis
Most Cybis collectors are familiar with the piece colloquially known as The Polish Bride, which was based on a 1929/1930 oil painting by Boleslaw Cybis, but until recently I was unaware that the studio produced a second sculpture based on a different, but strikingly similar, painting. The circumstances surrounding the second sculpture were a little [...]
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