Hi again, and thank you for your comments. I am still in two minds (partly about buying them, although I'm not really a porcelain collector, but more about their history, as I just find them so puzzling). I have had more time to google this and have found a couple of websites that indicate that these might(?) be 'real', but later -produced versions...though I'm still not sure ( I guess it would be possible to take a mould from an original and cast new ones). Anyway, this the website with a bit of a story to it... The article suggests that there were a lot of unpainted statuettes left, but also says that they were first being painted up all in gold (my underlining below)..so the pink still seems like an oddity...though its a lot of trouble to go to to make one statuette...hmmm I need Sherlock. Then they seemed to change to an iridescent white with black trim (See the pictures on this website, plus the 'seated' statuette). Now they seem to have temporarily suspended production.
http://michaeljacksonstatues.weebly.com/
My name is Istrate Adrian, in the '90s my family had a little porcelain factory. We didn't produce large quantities of items, we opted for limited edition, high-quality, hand made items. We have been creating masterpieces for years.
In 1998, Dieter Wiesner, the director of Mistery Germany, contacted me and ordered a series of statues resembling Michael Jackson. Not long after that, 1000 pieces were completed in beautiful gold and platinum colors and finished, by hand, with face like colors for greater detail. Those statues were numbered and sent to Germany to be sold by the Mistery company as souvenirs. We started creating more statues but halted the production because of a series of scandals Michael Jackson got involved in.
Today, we have a little under 1000 pieces left in their crude form
which we airbrush in gold paint completely. The Michael Jackson statues represent the King of Pop in the HIStory 1997-1998 tour. When Michael was in Japan, he got a visit from Dieter Wiesner which showed him two of the models we have created for him. One of those are the ones we still have today although they had more detail back then. Seeing the statues , Michael Jackson insisted to have his picture taken with them and Mr. Wiesner so that he could put an autograph on it and send it to us as a token of his admiration with our work.
Today, these statues are waiting for true fans to get them and hold on to something to remember Michael Jackson by, besides the wonderful albums he left us.