Three Sisters

Country: Spain

Manufactory: Lladro

Date of establishment: 1986

Size (cm): 35*34

Sculptor: José Puche

Limited Series

Porcelain Story

I have been to China twice. Both times have been long enough. Moreover, so long ago that at that time I did not show much interest in porcelain at all. And that's why I brought home from these trips all sorts of exotic things that at least something in many years could remind me of these trips. Among these things were wooden boards with river mother-of-pearl inlay, and tiny bottles for perfumes, skillfully painted on the inside with the finest pictures of Chinese life, and double-sided landscapes embroidered on silk by hand without a single knot! Can you imagine such miracles of folk art?!

But the absolute top of all this incredible "overseas" exoticism was 12 of the finest handmade female figurines carved from buffalo bone. It was explained to me (I think it was in Shanghai) that this work was done based on a classic Chinese novel dedicated to 12 sisters. Figurines, unlike one another, occupied a respectable place in my home and at work for many years, until over time they were forced out of there by porcelain items, which we were seriously interested in collecting.

And one of the works that replaced the beautiful Chinese sisters was today's composition dedicated to three Spanish sisters. There was probably no connection between them. Well, except for the fact that the thinnest translucent umbrellas in the hands of the Spanish sisters were created using Chinese silk, which is put into the product by porcelain makers, and during firing in the oven (at a temperature of 1200-1300 degrees), burning, forms a lot of thin holes that make a fragment of a porcelain product (either a frill of a woman's dress, or an umbrella) airy translucent. And if you still manage to see the smallest flowers that adorn the umbrellas in this composition, as well as the texture of the fabric that conveys the beauty of the sisters' dresses, as well as the facial expressions of the heroines and thin fingers, then you can definitely understand why, out of thousands of other works, this work is one of the most memorable in our collection.

And it also reminds me very much of three beautiful ladies with whom we have been friends for many years and who are most directly related to our passion for porcelain. Three generations of Egorovs - Svetlana, Daria and Polina - played a special role in the fact that over time we gave preference to porcelain to all our hobbies. And mostly Spanish. Svetlana Vasilievna and Dasha have been representing our favorite Valencian manufactory Lladro in Ukraine for many, many years. And our understanding of porcelain beauty was greatly facilitated by their stories about porcelain and our joint trips to its “natural habitat” in Valencia.