really pretty figurine with adorable pooch
i can find no issues: only displayed. there is alot of artistry to this figurine: the hair's movement for her swinging around to look down at the appearance of a pooch is just spot on. she is 7 1/2" tall by 3 1/2" wide at widest. several marks on the base (see second-to-last image that i really made it high contrast to make the incised marks clearer—though, despite this, i still have no idea what they say):
[nao hallmark]
nao
hand made in spain by lladro®
© daisa 1987
contrary to a popular story about the creation of nao sSpanish porcelain figurines—that nao pieces are really just Lladro seconds, the nao brand porcelains started life in 1967 as a separate manufactury under the name of rosal. the brand was renamed zaphir in 1975. then, due to the success and popularity of the pieces both in the united states and internationally, zaphir was «officially»* renamed nao in 1982. this name comes from the old sailing boats of the time of columbus, and symbolizes a return journey to origins, conveying creativity, skill and magic.
the «official» version of nao's beginnings, which comes from nao itself, is that, in seeking to expand their company, the lladro brothers bought a small porcelain factory near their home city of of valencia and began collaborating with the best local porcelain artisans to define a style that would look less sophisticated than the lladro image, but would instead represent creations full of charm and innocence. this new line was branded rosal.
but...there is another version of nao's beginnings that comes from one of the lladro brothers.
according to a passage from a 2002 memoir by josé lladró, passenger of life; memories and opinions of an entrepreneur (spain: editorial planeta, 2002), the beginnings of the brand that would become nao actually started with the defection of three lladro staff members.
in a chapter called «a providential conflict,» lladró describes how, «in the mid-sixties,» two of lladró's sculptors and one of its chemists turned renegade and struck out to establish their own competing factory in chirivella.
josé lladró's account makes it clear the brothers saw these new products as a threat to the dominance of their Lladro brand, and they decided to fight fire with fire, setting up their own rival brand to go head to head with the renegade company (in his book, josé lladró, never names the renegade's brand name). this occurred in 1967, and the new brand was named rosal because, according to josé lladró, the brothers did not want to involve the lladró name into what was sure to be an ugly competitive fight.
the brothers were right, it did turn into an ugly and public competitive fight, including a messy law-suit in which lladró prevailed and ended up buying out the renegade company. to quote josé lladró, «that company turned out to be unimportant to us and closed down shortly afterwards» (josé lladró, p. 98). rosal, meanwhile, «became the seed of what today is nao, our second brand» (josé lladró, p.99).
apparently the primary purpose of the rosal brand was to squash the renegades brand, and the brothers were unsure if the rosal brand would be successful, because the first rosal mark was just a stick-on tag. and the fact that the country of origin was noted as españa, indicates they did not plan the line for export since the u.s. import laws have long required that the country of origin be identified in english.
but the rosal line of porcelain figurines did catch on, and sometimes after 1969, (undocumented), the rosal factory began using an impressed factory mark.
however, the collectible porcelains website, el portal porcelana, offers another explanation of the relationship between nao and zaphir.
their version of the zaphir history is that it was a separate factory in the valenica region, and the sculptor for this brand was none other than josé puche, one of the famous core lladro collection sculptors. the first zaphir catalog was in 1978, and the zaphir brand ceased existence in the early 1980s, (which does correspond with the introduction of the first nao factory stamp, but does not correspond to the official nao version that zaphir started in 1975). the zaphir factory mark was a stamped mark, and was only recorded as a stamped mark.
the timing of the first official Nao factory mark does seem to coincide with end of zaphir porcelain figurines production, so perhaps the process was as nao says—a renaming of the factory's production. also, both the rosal and zaphir factories were located in the region around valencia. according to company spokesmen,«all nao pieces are created by the team of sculptors at the city of porcelain and are made at the company's workshops in the town of xirivella, in valencia (spain).»curiously, the official time-line for the birth nao, and its marks, is contradicted by physical products, but here is the design progression of nao's factory stamps, (back-stamps), as nao lists them.
the Nao marks below are all factory stamps, not impressed marks, and the official mark color has changed from the original black to the current dark brown. (there also appears to be authentic cobalt blue nao marks that are not listed by nao in their factory mark history)
what is lladró daisa? the reference to daisa is seen on the bottom of some lladró figurines and some wonder what it means. there is a lot of bad information online and we will clear it up from authoritative legal documents.
[i]n the 1990s «lladró» sued costco alleging the retailer was unlawfully selling lladró figurines in the united states without first purchasing them from a lladró affiliate. costco won the lawsuit and lladró was ordered to pay costco's legal fees. the case is diseños artísticos e industriales, s.a. v. costco, decided by the 9th circuit federal court of appeals in 1996 (97 f.3d 377). from the court records: daisa is an abbreviation of diseños artísticos e industriales, s.a., a spanish corporation.
here is the lladró hierarchy of companies and how the distribution and manufacture of lladró figurines works (this information has apparently only been publicly disclosed via the court documents), or at least how the hierarchy and structure existed in the mid 1990s. it may have changed since then:lladró comercial, s.a. is the parent company at the head of the lladró empire.also of interest, neither daisa nor the parent lladró company make the lladró figurines and products. instead, daisa licenses the right to make the figurines to four different manufacturers. the manufacturers have the ability to directly sell the figurines they make to anyone in the world. however, instead of doing this they sell the figurines back to the parent company lladró comercial.
lladró comercial, s.a. owns several subsidiary companies, through which it owns daisa.
interestingly, daisa owns the copyright to the lladró figurines, not the ultimate parent company.
the parent company then sells the figurines to various retailers and distributors worldwide.
for sales in the United States, lladró comercial contracts exclusively with lLadró usa to distribute Lladros in the fifty states.
in the lawsuit, costco had purchased numerous lladró figurines in the united states, but not via lladro usa. instead, costco had acquired product from numerous sources, including from an american company who had originally purchased them from a mexican company which had gone out of business.
the lladró companies claimed Costco could not sell the figurines because some came into the United States outside of lladró usa and this was the only way lladró permitted its products to be imported into the us.
the federal court noted every gift shop in the country could be sued if they had legitimately purchased a product and it turned out the purchase involved a distribution not authorized by the original creator of the product.
the federal court also noted the Lladro entities had made a mistake. daisa owned the copyright, but lladró comercial was trying to force a certain model of distributing products via lladró usa. the parent company could not do this. only daisa—the copyright owner could—but daisa's contracts allowed the manufacturers to sell to whoever they wanted without going through lLadró usa.
the court ruled the facts were undisputed and costo was the winner of the lawsuit.
now you know.
daisa is short for diseños artísticos e industriales, s.a., a spanish corporation, one of several related lladró corporations and the one designated to own the copyright on lladró products.
as if the lladró corporate structure was not complicated enough, another case further flushed out who the intermediary companies are and who owns who. this is from another lawsuit in 1987 diseños artísticos e industriales, s.a. v. work (e.d. ny 1987) 676 f.supp. 1254, also relating to who can sell Lladro products in the united States, and the corporate hierarchy could have been different from what was seen in the later case.
in that 1987 case sodigei, s.a., a spanish corporation, was described as being owned by the lladró brothers. sodigei in turn owned daisa, lladró exportadora, s.a., and lladró, s.a. lladró exportadora owned weil ceramics & glass, inc.
for completeness, while researching the issue we came across weil ceramics & glass, inc. v. dash, 618 f. supp. 700 (d.n.j. 1985), a third copyright case by lladró challenging the ability of retailers to legally purchase lladrós via foreign markets and then sell them in the us without going through Lladro. that case noted in the 1970s lladró acquired all of the stock in weil ceramics & glass in 1977.
in 1963 weil had begun importing lladrós to the us and lladró s.a granted weil the ability to register the flower trademark.
[nao hallmark]
nao
hand made in spain by lladro®
© daisa 1987
shipping costs have really increased—this is calculated into the buy-it-now price.
i am not able to sell individual items from items i have listed as a group. i just don't have the stamina to create new listings for those. i apologize for that. i haven't initially individually listed items because i don't have enough listing slots to so.
trying to downsize some, though extremely melancholically.
shipping time: i otherwise work more than full time and my health isn't great, so kindly excuse the longer handling time. if i am able to ship sooner, i absolutely will do that. i appreciate you taking the time to view my listing.