Hausmalerei

Fake, Forgery:  An intentionally deceptive replica or reproduction.

Replica, Reproduction:  An acknowledged copy intended to educate, preserve, or other valid motive – unless done with unscrupulous intent (see above).

Almost every European ceramic style was forged during the 17th to 19th centuries.  Meissen and Sévrès were popular targets.  But migrating craftsmen spread techniques legally, and popular interest sparked legitimate revivals.  Early Seigburg stoneware tankards (from original molds) reappeared in the 1830’s, as did Raeren stoneware in the 1880’s.  For a time Palissy ware was all the rage.

Business Plan:  A set of goals and the plan for reaching those goals.

As European porcelain production spread, quality control efforts clashed with efforts to keep factories solvent.  Owners (usually local royalty) employed many methods to avoid bankruptcy.  Example, some required Jews in their domain to purchase a certain amount of  product.  A less racist idea foreshadowed the modern “Seconds Sale.”

Hausmaler:  A painter of Hausmalerei.

Hausmalerei is the German word for “home painting.”  Freelance decorators set up shop outside most European ceramics factories, beginning in Germany in the mid 17th century.  They purchased defective, undecorated wares and applied their own enameling.  In France an outside decorator was called a chamberlan.  In England outside decorators were called outside decorators.

Hausmalerei wasn’t an actual forgery of the factory ware it came from.  The trouble was, hausmalers got good at it.  Hausmalerei was seen as a necessary but frowned upon evil – even in the best of times.  Just owning a kiln made one suspicious in the eyes of authorities.  Competition with factory-painted wares became so intense, many factories cut off supplies of blank porcelain.  But hausmalerei continued, at times by ‘less than legal’ means…

Individuals Looking For Unusual Pieces:  The usual patrons of this work.

Readings:
The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  Reginald Haggar.  Hawthorn Books/New York.  1960.

 

Technorati Tags: Forgery,Copy,Replica,Reproduction,Business Plan,Hausmalerei,Meissen,Sévrès,Seigburg,stoneware tankards,Raeren stoneware,Palissey,chamberlan,outside decorator,Seconds Sale

The Delft Widow

Once upon a time, a royal heiress named Jacqueline threw some small jugs she made out the window of a tower she was trapped in.  Thus began pottery making in Holland…

The story loses something in translation.  Actually, it’s just a story.  Holland’s rise to pottery fame (it began over a millennia before) was through the absence of beer.  The Dutch town of Delft’s brewing industry faded in the 1600’s.  Potters claimed the empty buildings.  They gave their new factories colorful names and made tin-glazed ware synonymous with their town’s name.

In 1658 Wouter van Eenhoom began a pottery in an old brewery, dubbing it “The Greek A.”  The factory went to his son in 1674.  The son’s widow took it over nine years later.  “The Metal Pot,” which until 1638 was the “De Ham” brewery, was also periodically owned by widows.  Egbert Huygeusz Sas started “The Golden Boat” in 1613.  His widow ultimately inherited it.

Many “widows” owned Delft pottery factories at one time or other: The Fortune, The Hart, The Young Moor’s Head, The Old Moor’s Head, The Ewer, The Porcelain Bottle…

These widows weren’t mere accidental owners.  Pottery ownership required membership in the Guild of St. Luke.  The Guild kept strict control over the quantity and quality of potteries within it’s domain.  Applicants had to prove their pottery making abilities.

Cornelius van der Hoeve began The Porcelain Claw in 1662.  His foreman, and later partner, was a woman named Oette van Schaen.  In 1668 van der Hoeve was succeeded by Cornelia van Schoonhove.  Just before her death, Cornelia ceded the pottery to her sister, Marie van Schoonhove.  Marie was succeeded by Bettje van Schoonhove.

The Two Poinards was begun and owned for 35 years by Barbara Rottewel.  Her husband, Simon Mes, was not a potter at all but a notary.  Her son succeeded her, then his widow.  Between 1771 – 1790 four Delemer sisters, previously faience dealers, renamed it The Three Bells and ran it as a soft paste porcelain factory.

It isn’t necessary to rely on tales of damsels in distress to recognize the role women played in Delft’s ceramic history.  Nor is it necessary to kill off your husband.  Just a pleasant afternoon of reading is all you need.

Readings:
Delftware, Dutch And English. N. Hudson Moore.  Frederick A. Strokes Company/New York. 1908.

The Concise Encyclopedia of Continental Pottery and Porcelain.  Reginald Hawthorn.  Haggar Books/New York.  1960.

Technorati Tags: Delft,Jacqueline,Guild of St. Luke,tin-glazed pottery,faience,soft paste porcelain

Lard Pot

The lard pot.  In relation to today’s efforts to explore clay’s vast plastic  potential, a momentary glance at this form says it all.  A somewhat curvy cylinder.  Big deal.  But nothing is a big deal if you only take a moment to consider it.

First, some history.  The “pot” in question is differentiated from it’s primordial sibling the “pan” by being taller than it is wide.  “Lard pot” is simply a reference to a specific function; storing festering, fly-covered animal fat for use in baking and cooking.  The form served a wide variety of uses both in the U.S. and its original home in Europe and the British Isles.  Several branches of the ceramic family trace their lineage to this original shape; handles led to pitchers; constricted rims became jugs; lids led to bean pots and ultimately casseroles…  But the ‘lard pot’ as a distinct form continued throughout.

Actually this is one of the oldest items in the Anglo-American potting tradition.   It was among the first forms to be made in England’s North American Colonies.  It’s production lasted two millennia until it’s extinction a mere hundred years or so ago.  So ubiquitous was this form that it’s difficult, by sight alone, to ascribe surviving examples to a particular period, place or maker.

The staying power of such a shape – passing through so many generations of hands, so many clays, so many wheels, so many kilns, so many decorative fads, across so many war-torn country sides, buffeted by so many economic and technological storms – is something remarkable.

The lard pot could be placed in a pantheon of archetypal pottery forms, along with other ‘long-distance runners’ like the Spanish/Muslim ánfora, the African beer pot, the Central American comal, and the Asian rice bowl.

Unfortunately, the lard pot epitomizes the clumsy, pedestrian nature of popular contemporary conceptions of early Redware.  But when executed in the hands of a master, it was a study in control.  With no handles, spouts, lids – or even glaze – to hide behind, proportions were critical.  The relation between base, belly and rim had to swell out enough for storage and ease of content removal, without being squat or dumpy.

To make a “lard pot” today is to converse with all those potters who laid out the path before us.  Feeling the old potters presence is a rare thing.  But when it happens, you’re in good company.

Readings:
Early New England Potters and Their Wares.  Lura Woodside Watkins.  Harvard Univ Press/Cambridge MA.  1968.

The Art of the Potter.  Diana and J. Garrison Stradling.  Main Street-Universe Books/New York.  1977.

Domestic Pottery of the Northeastern United States, 1625-1850. Sarah Peabody Turnbaugh, Ed.  Academic Press/New York.  1985.

If These Pots Could Talk.  Ivor Noël Hume.  University Press of New England/Hanover, NH.  2001.

A Descriptive Dictionary for 500 Years of Spanish-Tradition Ceramics [13th through 18th Centuries].  Florence and Robert Lister.  Special Publication Series, Number 1/The Society for Historical Archeology.  1980.

Ceramics in America.  Ian Quimby, Ed.  University Press of Virginia/Charlottesville.  1972.

Technorati Tags: Lard pot,pots and pans,pitcher,jug,bean pot,casserole,anfora,beer pot,comal,rice bowl,North American Colonies,Anglo-American pottery,redware