This year is the 13th in which I have chronicled Cybis porcelains and the studio that produced them; this month is also the 9th anniversary of the Cybis Archive, and you are reading the 300th new post uploaded to the site! The 100th post was my tribute to Marylin Chorlton, and the 200th provided a [...]
Category: Other Useful Topics
Cybis at the Museum of American Porcelain Art
Even though it opened less than seven years ago, the Museum of American Porcelain Art (MAPA) currently has more pieces of Cybis porcelain in its holdings than any other museum in the world. It leads the other two of the Top Three public Cybis collections by a wide margin in terms of quantity. How did [...]
Cybis ‘Sleeping Beauty’: Buyer, Beware that Lace!
The 1980s limited edition Sleeping Beauty is one of the most difficult pieces to find in a truly mint (un-damaged) condition today. There is an area of porcelain lace that seems to attract breakage like a rare-earth magnet. Unfortunately, most online sellers either don’t know or don’t disclose the extent of the damage and so [...]
‘My Cybis Isn’t Signed!’ (and why)
Although two of my Archive posts (Signatures & Marks, and Authenticating, Part Two) delve into the subject of the various Cybis signature formats, I hadn’t addressed the occasional discovery of pieces that have no signature at all, despite being undoubtedly a Cybis-made item. There are three possible scenarios that can account for a Cybis sculpture [...]
How to Properly Pack Porcelain Figurines
Few things are more disheartening than to see a lovely porcelain sculpture emerge from its shipping or 'moving' box with breakage. Whether you are sending, receiving, or simply moving such an item from one residence to another, there is plenty of how-to packing information on the internet. The problem is that some of it is [...]
How to Clean Porcelain Figurines
The fragility of fine porcelain figurines is certainly part of their beauty, but that same attribute can make them tricky to clean, if and when that’s needed. In reality it’s ‘when’ rather than ‘if’, because one of the Great Mysteries of Everyday Life is how something can get so incredibly dusty even though kept inside [...]
The Art of Making Art Porcelain
As a former collector I can't help wincing when I see a Cybis sculpture selling on eBay for a fraction of what its retail price was when originally made. After all, that was a few decades ago and isn't art supposed to appreciate in value over time? The economy has changed, of course – we're [...]
And the Award for the Most-Often-Damaged Cybis Goes To….
Although the typical ‘awards season’ is still another month or so away, some things never really change – such as those particularly fragile areas on certain Cybis porcelain sculptures that are distressingly prone to damage. Whether the breakage happens from a not-100%-careful picking up in order to dust the cabinet shelf (I have been guilty [...]
The Life and Death of the Art Porcelain Industry
‘Art porcelain’ is the term often used to refer to what many people call “porcelain sculptures.” The term “porcelain figurine” is sometimes used, but it’s too broad because it encompasses items such as the Hummel child figurines which are not regarded as ‘art porcelain.’ The history of the art porcelain market is useful when trying [...]
Cybis Porcelain Certificates of Authenticity (Real and Faux)
Some online sellers make a point of mentioning whether a given item is or isn’t being sold with its’ original box/packaging, and/or its COA (certificate of authenticity) if there originally was one. The original Cybis-marked boxes were frankly nothing to write home about, and most buyers didn’t bother to keep them. The COA situation is [...]
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 