This Monna Vanna flipper (flip
her over to expose her bare body) by Schafer and Vater is being reproduced
in a pink glazed china, no doubt trying to imitate the pink precolored bisque
this company often used. There are no painted features on the fake and the
modeling is blurred. Copies are also appearing in bisque with coloring
similar to this authenic example. However, in the copies, the colors are
brighter and hasher and the modeling is not as sharp. Except when it used
cold painting, generally Schafer has a very light touch when it came to
decorating, with many colors appearing closer to a wash.
This turtle lady is an old piece by Weiss, Kühnert, and Company. She is appearing in two different versions on on-line auctions with suspicious frequency, often offered over and over again by the same seller. On one suspect item, the bow is red and white, the facial painting much finer (and closely resembles that of the china bathing beauties in the first picture on the Fakes, Fantasies, Reproductions, and Reissues home page), and the inside of the shell is painted tan. However, apparently the people producing these fakes are either reading my book or my web page, because new copies are now appearing with a paint job that closely matches the colors of the original. Avoid purchasing her from any on-line auction claiming she is vintage old stock from Germany. In fact, unless you can get a believable family provenance or she is being offered by a dealer you really know and trust, at this point I would recommend not purchasing this model of turtle lady at all, or at least not on eBay.
This beautiful belle
hides a secret under her hinged bustle. . . 
which, when
lifted, reveals a beetle crawling up her bare bottom. The beetle is actually
molded, not merely painted on. The painting on this high-quality porcelain
piece is of the finest, with delicately handpainted floral designs alternating
with decorative designs and gilt touches. Not visible in the picture is
the dangling garter ribbon at her raised left knee.
The quality
of the decoration is evident in her hair, with its elaborate tiers of curls
striated with individually painted gray lines, and her finely painted aristocratic
features. This china lady is 7.25 inches tall. She carries the mark of Carl
Thieme, but she has also been found unmarked or with the spurious beehive
mark seen on so many antique porcelains. There may be slight decorative
differences in the painting of the dress, but the decoration is always handpainted
and of the highest workmanship. Whoever really made this lovely lady, she
is an uncommon and hard to find figurine. However, she is also being reproduced.
The new piece has lost the many fine painted details of the old, especially
the hair, which lacks the delicate striations, and the facial features,
which are very simply and blandly painted. The elaborate handpainted designs
on the dress are reduced to alternating stripes in the new version, which
carries a mark with cyrillic (Russian) lettering. The repro also does not
have the garter ribbon. But perhaps the most important detail missing from
the reproduction is the bug on her buttocks!