Today we are enjoying Austrian imperial porcelain — Royal Vienna, Austria. An incomplete set: a dish and serving vessels, the gravy boats and a lidded sugar bowl.
Hand-painted, signed by the artist Carl Larsen, the painting titled "The Pearl". The "beehive" mark, eighteenth century. That is how a listing might read, at tens of thousands of roubles — or a full hundred thousand.
All well and good, except that it is a fake. A high-quality, masterfully executed imitation of Austrian imperial porcelain. The first sign of a Royal Vienna fake is the mockery it makes of the princely dynasty's shield.
At the centre of the tray, a painting by one Carl Larsen, "The Pearl".
The original shield is a stylised coat of arms of the Babenberg dynasty, and on genuine marks it looks as though a child drew it.
The official Babenberg arms, with the red-and-white shield at the centre. Its proper name is the Bindenschild — the "banded shield" — and certainly not the "beehive", though that is exactly what the mark is called in the West. It is wrong, but there is no undoing it now: everyone is used to it.
Genuine marks. No exact symmetry; the drawing done by a "child".
And never — never at all — is there the word "Austria" beside that shield.
This isn't even a "beehive", it's a flat-iron. Or possibly a wigwam. On genuine marks the shield points downwards with its pointed part, and the false mark is far too "correct" — symmetrical, with clean lines.
For all that, the fake is made to the highest standard, most likely by good craftsmen working with the same clay and knowing their trade — though a collector's practised eye will also catch the small cheat of a painter who wanted to get it all done faster.
The detail on the fake is surprising, and impressive.
The family who owned this set suspected nothing, and had even glued back together one of the gravy boats after it was smashed to pieces. Who did it, and how, they don't remember — but it is very unprofessional, crude work.
Your trusted porcelain supplier will always look everything over personally and show it to you, warning you about faults and quirks, and providing high-quality photographs.
A simple test: find the broken gravy boat in the photograph below. This is exactly how unscrupulous dealers can mislead you.
Quite right, it's the one on the right — because its handle has been painted a different colour, even if a matching one. Again: a reliable porcelain supplier will warn you about everything and show you all the photographs. It looks perfect in this photograph, and yet it has been glued together from several pieces.
What we have learned today:
How to spot one of the fakes of Austrian imperial porcelain quickly, by its mark
The importance of photographs of marks — always insist on clear ones, and check them against reference books or online, though a great deal is written online and often enough with mistakes
Fakes can be well made and beautiful
Even for a professional, seeing the problem in a photograph is quite hard, so always rely on porcelain suppliers you trust. A conscientious supplier will always answer any question and send extra photographs, or even video, because they love the work. If you are told "there's nothing to see in the photo, open your eyes" — think twice. There is no place in this trade for rudeness or for the hucksters of the nineties, and there should not be.
Incidentally, in the wild I have found pieces of the original pattern that the forgers took their inspiration from only on Etsy, at a decidedly bracing price:
The original set costs more than 2,000 dollars.
Thank you for your attention. Don't touch that dial — there will be more good things.