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Now Out of Print


Latest Book!

A Collector's Book
of Retired Lladró ;
Genuine Figurines & Their Marks
by Peggy Whiteneck

Click here to order!



Click on the image above for a link to the web site for The Glass and Pottery Review from Old Line Publishing! The inaugural issue has my feature article on Lladró.

The Hispania Company

-Peggy Whiteneck

This Hispania leopard cub is one of several nearly lifesize items made in the Hispania collection under Lladró's ownership in the decade of the 1980s. (It measures a foot high and a foot long!) Note the uncharacteristic use of primary colors. (Photo by the author from her own collection.)

Hispania was more than just another brand; it was an actual company, one of several with which the budding Lladró brothers were associated beginning in the 1940s. (The brothers sold Hispania products, along with their own, in their first shop.) The Hispania company was founded in 1941 and was most noted for its production of earthenwares and majolica, primarily decorative items such as vases, frames, planters, and the like. After the Lladró brothers became successful, they bought out their old collaborator and tried to make a "go" of it throughout the decade of the 80s before closing it in 1989.



These Hispania "centerpieces" that date from Lladró's ownership of Hispania would have been typical of the types of decorative housewares this company made throughout its history. (Photo from a Hispania catalog of the 1980s.)

Under Lladró's ownership, the Hispania corpus included several quite large animals, of a scale to which traditional porcelain is unsuited but that can be done in earthenware. (One of these dogs, a model of a seated Great Dane, measures almost three feet tall!) However, the staple of the brand remained its decorative wares.

It is virtually impossible to set values on Hispania wares; they don't appear to have had much market penetration beyond Spain and are little known to collectors. The animal models can be expected to be as popular as animal models in pottery and porcelain usually are, however, and mint examples of the nearly-lifesize Hispania menagerie are usually not lacking for bidders on those rare occasions when they appear on eBay®. The one caveat I would have for collectors is a caution about condition. The animals are thinly potted in a not-very-durable ceramic formula and are thus vulnerable to damage. Their extraordinary delicacy relative to their size is likely to make surviving examples in mint condition increasingly scarce over time.

Announcing
A Collector's Book of Retired Lladró

by Peggy Whiteneck
published by
Old Line Publishing, LLC
Hampstead, Maryland

Posted 7/18/10

Ever since its founding in the 1950s and its subsequent, stellar rise to global prominence, collectors have been fascinated with the singular modeling and attention to detail in Lladró Spanish porcelain figurines. Eventually, collectors discovered that Lladró wasn't just one brand, but several. At the same time, other companies began to sprout up all over Spain, particularly around Lladó's own region in Valencia, working "in the Lladró style" and hoping to catch a ride on the tailwinds of its popularity. This book is written to acquaint readers with retired figurines in all the Lladró and Lladró-affiliated brands and to help distinguish them from the work of other Spanish companies. The book features substantive chapters on the Lladró "core brand," NAO by Lladró, Zaphir, Golden Memories, Rosal, and Hispania, complete with representative photos for each brand.

Retail Price: $29.95
Special Pre-Order Price: $26.95
S & H: $5.95

Click Here to Order!
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