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A Rosenthal figure of a dancer, nude but for a length of drapery caught over one arm, weight on the back foot, the other arm thrown out. Marked ROSENTHAL with the Kunstabteilung Selb mark, a model number and the modeller's signature.
Read the damage first. Two fingertips are missing from the outstretched right hand. The breaks are old and unglazed and I have photographed them straight on rather than shooting the hand from behind. That is the reason this is priced where it is, and it is the reason a Rosenthal art department figure is within reach at all.
Kunstabteilung means art department, and it is the mark that separates the pieces that matter from the tableware. Rosenthal set the department up specifically to employ named sculptors and put their signatures on the work, in an era when factory modellers were anonymous. The signature on the base is a person, not a brand.
The figure is doing the hardest thing in ceramic sculpture: standing on one contact point with a limb extended into open air. Porcelain shrinks about an eighth of its volume in the kiln and it does not shrink evenly, so an extended arm wants to droop or crack off during firing. The extended arm is the whole achievement. It is also, unsurprisingly, where the damage is.
Displayed with the damaged hand turned away, nothing about this piece reads as compromised. That is a decision for the buyer, and I would rather they make it with the photograph in front of them.
Condition: DAMAGE PRESENT AND PHOTOGRAPHED: two fingertips are broken off the outstretched right hand. The breaks are old, flat and unglazed, and are shown close up in one of the photographs. No other chips, cracks or restoration found. The drapery edges, the toes and the hair are all intact. Mark and model number legible on the base. Priced as damaged.
Ships flat rate from Baltimore via FedEx, out the door within the stated handling time. I price shipping by size rather than by scale, since I work from photographs rather than a shipping scale. Combined shipping on multiple items. Returns accepted for 30 days.
Ten percent of every sale goes to a nonprofit providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
Packaging is reused. Boxes and padding come from what already passed through here, so the parcel will not look new but it will arrive intact. Nothing extra is included: no cards, no plastic sleeves, no filler.
I teach for a living. Sorting and researching these pieces is how I learn, and selling is what makes room for the next batch. If you know more about this one than I do, tell me. Corrections are welcome and I will update the listing.
