Bathing Beauty of the Week

As first glance, Ms. #514 appears to be from the German firm of Dressel, Kister and Company.  The pose is one made by the manufacturer, she is of a fine pretinted china of the type often used by this company, and her brown, rather than the more usual blue, eyes are typical of Kister.  Although she is quite nicely done, to my mind, the workmanship is just not up to the high Dressel standards.  Instead of the blue "bishop's cozier" mark (which looks like a spiky backwards question mark) often found Dressel pieces, this little 4 inch long bathing belle is incised underneath "Made in Germany" and what appears to be an underlined "V."  Dressel was renown for its luxury porcelain items, and although it survived WWI, it struggled during the subsequent economic crisis, going bankrupt in the 1930s.  The City of Passau, where the company was located, acquired the factory and kept it functioning on a reduced basis until closing it in the 1950s.  Perhaps this brown-eyed girl is from the post-WWII production period.