Unknown crown mark, German/Austrian/Fake?

Any help or ideas on this would be greatly appreciated. On the base of a ginger jar, looks continental possibly German/Austrian.

Thanks

Roy

Assuming it's hand painted rather than screen printed, it looks like a genuine piece of early 19th Century porcelain that is copying the Chinese style with the pink fish-scale motif and baluster vase shape.
I haven't found which factory, although Limbach is a possibility. Or it could be French.

Hard to say from the pictures, but the base/mark looks 20th century to me.

The mark also looks a bit suspicious to me to be honest, but a better picture of the decoration would help.

Might just be shadows, but it looks like there might be impressed numbers below the crown, or maybe very faint letters.

The crown marks on European ceramics are almost always more ornate than this and almost always have some wording or other motifs as well.

I have not been able to find this style of crown associated with any European factory. The closest is one used by Royal Copenhagen, which this clearly is not.

Therefore my view is that it was not made in Europe.

I can confirm that it is hanpainted, there are incised marks underneath the crown which read 621/3. I hadn't even considered anything other than 20th century tbh, the crown is very similar to a number of Bavarian producers but it is the lack of lettering that is confusing me. Will get some clearer pics uploaded.

Incised numbers also point to it being 19th Century. There were potteries like Samson in france, copying pieces by the big names. Not sure you'd class it as a fake, though. Just a copy by a minor factory.

Don't know if these are any clearer.

I'd still say a 19th Century copy by a minor factory, maybe one of the small Desden ones. They were still copying classic pieces like this into the early 20th century, so difficult to date accurately. Because it can't be attributed, the value is mainly on the decoration and degree of rubbing of the gilt rather than having the added cachet of a well known pottery name.

NaomiM wrote:Incised numbers also point to it being 19th Century.

I'd say the opposite, numbers like this are usually found on later pieces in my opinion.

Potty wrote:

NaomiM wrote:Incised numbers also point to it being 19th Century.

I'd say the opposite, numbers like this are usually found on later pieces in my opinion.

We're going to have to agree to disagree. I'd expect to see stamped numbers if it was 20th century.

NaomiM wrote:
We're going to have to agree to disagree.

Agreed   

http://www.porcelainmarksandmore.com/bavaria/kirchenlamitz_1/00.php

have a look through this site , Kirchenlamitz , poppelsdorf etc there does appear to faint marks under the crown .

big ed wrote:http://www.porcelainmarksandmore.com/bavaria/kirchenlamitz_1/00.php

have a look through this site , Kirchenlamitz , poppelsdorf etc there does appear to faint marks under the crown .

.... but the crowns are not the same. The one we are trying to ID have 5 sections under the cross and all of these on this site have 4.

I know that , but there are other companies to trawl through not just the ones I mentioned .

probstzella ( thuringia) has 5 sectioned crown , not saying that is what it is , but can't rule out german as yet imo.

thanks guys, slowly working my way through the PM&M site, came across a few with 5 sectioned crown. Also had a look at a lot of "fake" marks and can't find anything matching either.

My reference for things like this is "Directory of European Porcelain" by Ludwig Danckert. The book contains "4750 factory and decorators' marks, dating from the discovery of porcelain in Europe". It goes up to the 1960s and there is no crown like the one on the bottom of this piece in all of those marks. The mark for the H. Hutschenreuther factory in Probstzella that Big Ed mentions is included in the book and, although Ed wasn't suggesting that it was made there, I had ruled that out as the 2 outer sections of the 5 are much smaller than the other 3 in that mark.

I'm sure that the book doesn't have everything in it but this together with the lack of any lettering suggests to me that the mark is not a factory mark but a suggestion of a factory mark.

I said earlier that this suggested to me that it wasn't made in Europe but on reflection it could well have be made by a factory such as Samson trying to imitate something else.

5 sectioned crowns can be found in Luneville France , potteries in Selb have them also , i suspect there are many more around that we haven't found such as yours , I agree the lack of insignia or lettering isn't good as it's unlikely that part has faded in some way .

quick update which I meant to post earlier is that the mark itself is also hand painted

Really? , I would have doubted that from the pics , if true then must be a fake imo.

yeah just had a real close look at it under a jewellers loupe. Interested as to why in your opinion tat would mean fake, not disagreeing btw. Seen a number of mase marks that are handpainted, including Bavarian ones such as some of the Leni Parbus ones.

Obviously we only have pictures and you are able to look at it more closely but rather than the mark being hand painted might it be a poor distribution of ink on the stamp that has produced the uneven distribution of ink on the mark?

Looking at the photos of the crown, it looks like a faint stamped mark that they've touched up with a fine brush to create shaddowed areas. I don't think parts would be missing if it was all hand-painted. This may imply that they were trying to copy a mark, but since it's not one of the well known factories that used a crown, I don't know why they would bother - if they were going to go to the trouble of faking a mark why not choose the common one, ie, the crossed swords of Meissen?
The tulip is very Meissen-like.
I still think it's a minor German factory.