Vintage Lladro A Walk with the Dog Figurine 4893 – Retired Edwardian Lady Holding Pekingese and Parasol, Handmade Porcelain Spain, 1980s

An Edwardian lady in a long dress, a small Pekingese tucked in the crook of her arm, a closed parasol slipping from her wrist to rest in the ruffles of her skirt. This is Lladró #4893, "A Walk with the Dog" — sculpted by José Roig, made from 1974 until it was retired in 2005. At about fifteen inches it is a large piece, in the soft blue-grey and white that reads as a Lladró across a room.

One thing worth knowing before anything else: this is the most copied Lladró design there is. The market is full of unmarked "lady with a dog" lookalikes. The way you tell a real one is the base — and this one carries the genuine blue bellflower mark, Lladró · Hand Made in Spain, with the impressed model number. Not the face; the mark.

The making is the usual Lladró magic — colours fused into the glaze in a single high firing, so they melt together with no hard edge; the elongated neck; the little pointed slipper under the hem. The clever, fragile bit is the parasol, modelled to dangle from her wrist into the folds of the skirt — the sort of detail that is hard to fire and easy to chip. Here the parasol, its tip, the dog and the fingertips are all intact.

Because it was made for thirty-one years, this is not a rare piece — which means condition is everything, and a complete, unrepaired one like this is what holds value.