Rare Herend Hungarian Painted Porcelain Chinese Man on Leaf Figure. What a cute little guy on a leaf, just being a piece of objet d'art. Good for him. Marked on base, "handpainted." 

Size: 3 x 3 x 1 3/4 in. 

#4198 . 

The Herend Porcelain Manufactory is a Hungarian company that specializes in luxury hand-painted and gilded porcelain. It was founded in 1826 by Vince Stingl as an earthenware pottery maker, based in the town of Herend near the city of Veszprém. Stingl also carried out extensive research on porcelain making, but ran out of funds and subsequently went bankrupt. His creditor Mór Fischer took control of the factory in 1839 and started manufacturing artistic porcelain of his own. At that time it was almost impossible to replace broken pieces and supply old classical porcelain dinner-sets from the Far East to Europe, due to growing political upheaval and shifts in control of economic supply lines, so within ten years Fischer had managed to market himself almost exclusively to the Hungarian aristocracy. Until the end of the 19th Century the company was the chief supplier of the Habsburg Dynasty and other aristocratic customers throughout Europe. Herend displayed its designs at the First Hungarian Applied Art Exhibition and the Vienna Exhibition in 1845. It followed these successful showings with exhibits at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York in 1853 and the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1855. Some well-known patterns were named for their first major customers (Queen Victoria, Esterházy, Batthyány, Rothschild, Apponyi, etc.), and in 1865 Francis Joseph I of Austria gave a noble title to Fischer. From 1872 on Fischer was known as Purveyor to the Royal Court, and was entitled to use the shapes and patterns of the Manufactory of Vienna, which had closed down the previous year. In 1874 Fischer’s health began to fail and he passed management of the manufactory to his sons. These men changed the focus of the company away from artistic creations to purely efficient wares, and sales began to decline. The factory changed hands several times, and almost went bankrupt twice. In 1897 the grandson of the founder, Eugen Fischer, became the owner, and his experience as a trained ceramist working in foreign factories gave him the wherewithal to create new designs and revive traditional patterns. His new novelties introduced at exhibitions in 1900 in Paris and 1901 in Saint Petersburg were well-received. The company continued to produce ceramics during and between the World Wars, although at significantly diminished capacity. In 1948 the company was nationalized by the Soviets. In 1993, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was privatized, and by 2015 75% of the company was owned by the management and workers. Today Herend continues to produce hard-paste porcelain using a mixture of kaolin, feldspar and quartz. Many of its classic patterns are still in production after nearly 200 years. The company operates the Porcelain Museum of Herend within its factory, with working displays that take visitors through the production process. The factory continues to export its wares to over 60 countries around the world, with its main markets being Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States.