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Ah, That Mysterious
NAO Brand!
-Peggy Whiteneck
The myth of origins of the NAO brand is a tale I've come
to think of as the "Adam's Rib" creation story: "In the beginning was
the core collection, and it begat everything else." According to this version,
NAO came into being
after the three founding brothers decided that it would be nice to
have a brand that would make fine porcelain
affordable for a broader public.
This breath-taking model of a NAO "Goose"(#52)
is over a foot tall! It has a companion piece (#53) in which the goose's neck is
bent to preen its breast. These were made in both glazed and matte (unglazed)
versions. Both models were recently retired (2001) at a last retail price
of $60 each. Identical models have been found with old impressed core
collection marks. Just to confuse matters, this
pair was also made in a somewhat smaller version called "Goose-Reduced"
(NAO #s 54 and 55), retired in 1991. I've recently been advised by
Lladró customer services in Spain that the sculptor for
these models was Fulgencio García, who was one of the most famous
of the Lladró sculptors. (Photo by the author from her
own collection.)
However, it has become clear to veteran
collectors over the years that the evolution of the NAO brand was contemporaneous
with the appearance of the core collection rather than grafted onto it later.
Which came first is a chicken-or-the-egg question, but it seems clear that the earliest relationship
between NAO-marked items and the earliest core collection models is quite a
bit more symbiotic than anyone had previously suspected.
In fact, according to a recent admission on the
official NAO porcelain web site, "NAO was founded
in 1968 under the name Rosal." Thanks to alert collector Robert E. (Gene)
Woods for calling this information to my attention. As it happens, Gene
purchased, in the UK, a
pheasant model, which he indicates is an exact twin of the
regular collection rarity #331.13. (For a picture of this pheasant and
more information on this "cloning" phenomenon,
see
Items Known to Have Been Produced Under Both Marks.)
2017 Update
With all due respect to the Official NAO web site, collectors are advised to exercise
caution in drawing conclusions from items posted in that site's "Historical Catalog."
In updating retirements and new issues in the NAO web catalog here on El Portal Porcelana,
I came across several listings for items on the official NAO web site that were paired
with the wrong photos of older items from the regular Lladró collection
produced too late for there to have been NAO clones of those items; the titles and sculptors
do not match the photos of the items in question. The NAO division of Lladró is
struggling with the huge challenge of reconstructing its historical catalog,
so just be aware that it has some incomplete information as well as inaccuracies
while they are sorting things out.
At Last - A New Lladró Book!
The Lladró Guide; A Collector's Reference to Retired Porcelain Figurines in Lladró Brands
My most recent Lladró book has revised and expanded content and
remains the only book in print on this topic that isn't just a catalog. Covers all Lladró and
Lladró-affiliated brands (regular collection, NAO, Zaphir, Golden Memories,
Hispania, Rosal, and Tang) and tells how to distinguish them from imitations and counterfeits.
Revised and expanded content includes
many new photos and a new chapter on future directions for collectors and the company now that it has
passed from family hands. The book is in hard cover, which eliminates
that annoying curl-up that happens with paperback books. You can order the book directly from the publisher, Schiffer Books,
on Amazon,
or from your favorite bookstore using the ISBN 13 number 978-0764358395.
Warning: If you're looking for a catalog
of every retired figurine Lladró ever made, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for beautiful, full-color photos of
representative models and more in-depth and well-researched
information about Lladró and its history and production than you can get in thumbnail photos with captions,
this book is what you're looking for.
Retail Price in Hardcover: $45
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The logo background and side border graphic on this site are provided courtesy
of Absolute Background Textures Archive (www.grsites.com/textures). All other
content and graphics on this site are © Peggy Whiteneck. No reproduction
of any part of this content is permitted without the express permission of the
web site author.
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