Owls have been a hugely popular collecting genre for ages, and Cybis depicted them several times in porcelain. The Cybis owl that shows up in countless collections is their iconic Baby Owl which was introduced in 1957. This adorable owlet is the longest-running sculpture that Cybis ever offered. As the images show, there are often slight variations in ‘perch’ colors between one owl and another which is to be expected since each Cybis sculpture is completely hand painted. . The Baby Owl is 4.25” high.

You may have seen examples of Cybis porcelain art sculptures for sale in antiques stores or online shops and auction venues and wondered ‘What is this? Boleslaw Cybis (pronounced SEE–bis) was born in Lithuania in 1895. During the 1920s and 1930s the quality of his work was recognized throughout Europe and culminated in a request from the US government to create a series of murals for the “Hall of Honor” in the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. After obtaining US citizenship he and his wife Marja established a studio in the NY City suburb of Astoria, and in 1942 he decided to relocate to Trenton, NJ.  Cybis named the new venture the Cordey China Company and produced painted and highly glazed china giftware.  In 1950 he opened a second location in Trenton and named it the Cybis Porcelain Art Studio. 

Because Cybis sculptures were created in an artisan environment and never mass produced, the level of detail work is quite high. Boleslaw Cybis died in 1957 and the Cybis studio officially closed its doors on Norman Avenue in Trenton in late 2019, approximately fifty years after first occupying that custom-built structure.

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