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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Chris Marshall, post: 6491597, member: 206&quot;]Even though they all were part of the Rosenthal group the chemistry between the different production facilities was not always perfect. <i>&quot;some parts were MORE equal&quot; </i>and so the main Rosenthal facility not only wanted the cake, they also wanted all of the icing on top. This lead to absurd situations. Artists had to literally apply for a contract with Rosenthal and could be (a) accepted or (b) told to apply at a daughter company like Thomas (as in: <i>&quot;not good enough for the Studio Line&quot;</i>). In case (b) Rosenthal still closely monitored proceedings - as soon as the corresponding artist sales rose above a given margin, Rosenthal snatched them back.</p><p><br /></p><p>This caused so much internal dispute that Thomas received the go-ahead for what later became the &quot;Atelier Collection&quot;; the Thomas branch was allowed to sign on artists as they liked. Rosenthal on the other hand could still check if an artist was worth it but then they had to officially buy out the contract from Thomas.</p><p><br /></p><p>This may sound peculiar, but all subsidiaries had to constantly turn in business reports and prove their financial wellbeing - supporting aggressive competitive behaviour between subsidiaries was nothing new. During the earlier years, an artist grabbed back by Rosenthal was counted as direct financial loss for the subsidiary as the lost revenue had a negative impact on the annual report; the corresponding factory received no form of compensation. Under the new agreement on artist acquisition and development a subsidiary received financial compensation based on the overall expected &quot;value&quot; of an artist. This not only helped to end many internal quarrels but also offered Rosenthal a method of cashing in on certain tax benefits.</p><p><br /></p><p>This only offers a little insight on how far internal affairs affected certain decisions and why parts of this were never published. It is hard - if not impossible, sometimes - to directly state which artist worked for a given part of the Rosenthal group during a certain period of time. Even placing a finger on the corresponding factory can prove difficult as all info was treated ever so confidentially.</p><p><br /></p><p>If artists (or their heirs) still have the paperwork at hand that would be quite a treasure seeing that the former legal entity &quot;Rosenthal AG&quot; is history and near all corresponding material is locked up at the Porzallanikon museum, probably never to be published. The proprietors from Italy did not claim full legal succession status, it would therefore be well worth it to check if the corresponding paperwork can be seen as public domain material nowadays.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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