On a daily basis ebay,  internet sellers and shops are offering figurines and other small porcelain objects as made by Camille Naudot and bearing an N over C mark matching that as shown for Naudot by several popular marks guides.  The Paris porcelain maker Camille Naudot & Cie produced no porcelains of this type (i.e. no headvases, cat figures, cupid or cherub figurines or vases) in fact Naudot produced no figures at all.  The actual work of Naudot is extremely rare and consists simple shaped bowls and vases enamelled in the Art Nouveau style.  True Naudot is rarely seen on the open market.  So what are these pieces that bear a similar mark but not the style of Camille Naudot's work?  This NC (or CN) mark is documented to be on exports from Japan after WWII. The mark, impressed or printed, is found on pieces by many different makers (Miyao/Py,  Maruri, Kowa Toki (figures marked with KW before numbers) and others) and many different importers/exporters (lefton, esd, ardalt, l'amour, ucagco, coronet, sadek, acme, crown shafford, tilso and others). Moreover, Naudot did not use printed model numbers with his mark.  To this date no one has documented what this mark means.  Are these pieces fake or misleading? No, as Naudot did not produce anything like these figures, they are not fakes and since Naudot is in reality a very obscure company, the Japanese would unlikely be copying his company'smark.  It must be taken that the NC mark on Japanese porcelains is simply a coincidence. 

Why do the marks guides say this is a Camille Naudot mark?  In some cases the marks guides are correct in that the Naudot mark is an N over a C.  However, the true mark is painted  underglaze with a very elongated N and very oval C. The marks guides also seem unaware that this mark is found on many Japanese exports.  One pictorial mark guide shows a 'Naudot' figure group along with a mark. These are known to be Ardalt imports from Japan. 

One guide does get the Japanese origin correct for this mark-The World of Head Vase Planters by Mike Posgay and Ian Warner, 1992. However, as the rest of us, they can only hypothesize the meaning of the mark.

Some contributors to ebay's pottery, glass and porcelain discussion board have been researching this problem for as many as 30 years. It bears note that we are aware of only one true Camille Naudot piece on ever appearing on ebay. Further information is in the following discussion thread

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000022687&start=0

In other words, it is unlikely anything show to the right is by Naudot---------------------------------------->

Occasionally this NC mark on porcelains is also mis-identified as the mark of Newcomb college, but the absurdity of that attribution goes without saying.

It should also be noted that a similar NC mark can be found on some ceramics of German origin, generally from after World War II. This NC mark is usually under a crown. The origin of this mark is also unknown but as the mark is often accompanied by Germany or US Zone, it cannot be mistaken for Naudot.