Bruno Merli Figurines? Maybe?

Pick from an estate sale this morning. These were advertised as Bruno Merli "Capodimonte". They do indeed say 'Bruno' on the front, and they do looks kindof capo-ish, so I thought nothing of it. But after getting home and getting on the google machine, I cannot find any Bruno Merli figurines signed in any fashion except a 'B Merli' impression. So I'm stuck now trying to figure out exactly what these things are. The only copy I can find of one of these is an ebay listing and the guy seems as clueless as I am.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Capodimont...AN-PLAYING-CELLO-antique-vintage/254167806579

So I'm stuck looking for "Bruno" marks and this ghost of a foil tag on the bottom of one of my figurines. Looks like a cobalt blue silver rimmed foil tag. The visible bit on the sticker looks like a piece of an Iron Cross.
Any ideas? Maybe its very atypical early or late Bruno Merli stuff? Maybe junk?

 

Mark on another...
Italian Porcelain Musician playing Flute Figurine Vintage Capodimonte

 

how interesting, the one you found doesn't have the "bruno" mark on the front... this is really weird.

 

Right? They think pretty highly of it, at $169.00!

 

50's to 80's "capodimonte" can get pretty belligerently expensive depending on the artist and the rarity and ornateness of the figurine. I should know I've sold some.

 

I usually associate foil sticker with Japan and Taiwan post 1940, but I am sure there are many exceptions.

 

Bruno Merli for Ginori?

 

Mystery solved. These are some sort of Arnart recreations of Bruno Merli works. I found an old listing via ListingHistory.com that had the piece labeled as Arnart.

To confirm, a google search on bruno merli arnart comes up with more of these figurines with gold "Bruno" on the front and no actual "B. Merli" signature.

To double confirm, I found an Arnart foil sticker that matches the little bit of sticker left on my piece pretty closely. The iron cross looking thing is part of a crown that Arnart puts on their stuff.



So that takes care of that. But I'm still confused as to the export process when companies deal with entities like Arnart. I doubt they just gave them molds of their works to fire up their own. So is it likely that they make some sort of special export edition of their products to differentiate them?

 

What were these eventually worth?

 

Welcome to Antiquers! The original poster has not been back to look at this site since October 2019. I will put in a tag @Mungo in case that will work as an alert.