Beauty comes alive in porcelain

Avid collectors of porcelain are very familiar with the Spanish brand Lladro, which is universally famous not only for its beautiful products but also for limited-edition rarities that are known for their fine artistic design and quality.

Collectors say that love of Lladro porcelain opens up a world that is free of monotony, a world of genuine beauty. That is why connoisseurs of ceramic art are delighted that Kyiv is hosting an exhibit and auction of Europe’s largest collection of Lladro rarities, which belongs to Svitlana and Daryna Yehorova. The exhibit is on display at the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum until April 27.

There were a lot of well-known people at the opening ceremony, including Yan Tabachnyk, Dmytro Gordon, Oleksandr Shvets, and The Day’s editor Larysa Ivshyna. Some of them are longtime collectors, while others are simply captivated by the beauty of porcelain.

The auction was a great opportunity for collectors to expand their collections of Lladro masterpieces. “Traveling in the Sky,” “Gazebo,” “Dreaming on the Beach,” “Lilies,” and “Roses” are some of the romantic names of the delicate figurines depicting flowers, beautiful women, and strong men, each of which tells a story. Fifteen items were auctioned, and almost all of them found a new owner. Since the auction was also a charitable event, the owners of the collection promised to donate part of the proceeds to the Khanenko Museum (auction lots sold for over 25,000 euros).

“We have been collecting Lladro figurines for 12 years. By ‘we’ I mean my daughter Daryna and my granddaughter Polia, who has managed never to have broken a single figurine,” Svitlana Yehorova said. “I saw my first figurine, ‘Feathery Fantasy,’ in the window of a shop in Budapest, when I was traveling the world. At that moment I began learning about Lladro. Over time, I studied the essence of the porcelain world — the specific features of creating porcelain items, their properties, where they are sold, etc. For example, I found out that some items are made of gres, a material invented by Lladro, which endows sculptures with such specific properties as strength, power, and richness. Our collection also contains figurines made of gres: one of them is called ‘Heavenly Music,’ a guardian angel playing an ancient musical instrument.”

Today the Yehorova family collection contains more than 250 rarities. Among them are highly acclaimed 21st-century porcelain masterpieces as well as items that were once owned by such well- known art centers as the Hermitage, the Royal Museum of Arts and History in Belgium, and the International Museum of Ceramic Art in Spain. Svitlana admitted that she loves every figurine in her collection, but most of all she adores “The Female Courtier,” a proud and regal representative of the royal court. The collector also admitted that she would like to look exactly like this woman.

“On the whole, all the Lladro items spark exalted feelings. They bring people peace, and make them forget their problems and plunge into the world of beauty. So it is practically impossible not to get ‘infected’ by Lladro,” said Daryna Yehorova. “Today we collect things as a family, and when it comes to deciding whether or not to buy a certain item, we discuss it. My mother’s taste usually coincides with mine. As you know, most collectors acquire single- themed figurines, such as flowers, ballerinas, mermaids, toy ships, etc. Our collection is special in that it consists of various-themed items. It is important for us that the figurines are nice to look at and give pleasure. For example, I don’t like banal figurines of which there are very few in the Lladro collection. If it is a ballerina, she should be not just a girl with a tutu on and an indifferent face but a personality in a certain mood and with emotions.”

This is precisely how the Lladro trademark attracts connoisseurs of ceramic art. When collectors purchase Lladro figurines, they begin living in a different world. Oleksandr Shvets, the editor of the newspaper Fakty, who also collects Lladro porcelain, is convinced that this new world is full of different smells, colors, and sensations.

“Collecting porcelain items gives me an opportunity to plunge into the world of beauty as well as into a fairy tale,” Shvets said. “Spanish ceramic artists bring to life the fairy tale heroes whom we admired in childhood — princes and princesses, winged horses, and other magical creatures. I am so enthusiastic about this porcelain that I even visited Valencia, the birthplace of the Lladro brothers, who founded this trademark. There are many varieties of porcelain in the world — German, English, Austrian — but Lladro is unique in that these figurines are not painted. Various hues are created by means of the colorants that are added to the clay.”

That is why all Lladro figurines have natural colors and resemble living beings. The porcelain world is also unique in that everybody can find something beautiful and inimitable for themselves.