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 in which the
budding Lladró brothers were apprenticed to their craft beginning in
the 1940s. 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 their old company
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 the Hispania company 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.
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