World Class Connoisseurs of Salt-Fired German Stoneware

They say Germany’s two greatest contributions to Western Civilization were the Reformation and hops in beer.  And both happened at about the same time.

As condensed history, so it goes.  But hops also radically impacted pottery history.  Everybody wanted beer once early 16th century brewers, village housewives mostly, began producing it.  Kids even got their diluted “little beer” for breakfast.  And the best beer containers, before mass produced glass, were stoneware bottles.  Demand skyrocketed.  Germans had been tinkering with stoneware since the 10th century.  But 16th to 18th century salt-fired German stoneware became world renowned because of beer.

Unfortunately Germany’s Rhineland district, where the best work was made, was a playground of war for centuries.  Whole communities were continually uprooted by chronic warfare.  Rhennish potters from Raeren, Freshcen and Siegburg ultimately ended up in the somewhat calmer Westerwald region.

Along the way they picked up improvements in clays, sprig decorations, and brilliant manganese and cobalt highlights.  Their work spawned off-shoots, reproductions, fakes and revivals long after their dominance had passed.

German stoneware was so popular, English potters couldn’t prevent caveats from diluting their July 22, 1672 Parliamentary Order in Council meant to insulate local markets.  The final bill prohibited imports of “any kind or sort of Painted Earthen Wares whatsoever except those of China, and Stone bottles and Juggs.”

Tons of German stoneware, literally, were shipped to England’s North American colonies during the 18th century.  Ironically beer bottles and beer mugs, “krugen” and “cannen,” were not the top imports.  Chamber pots were.  But drinking vessels were close behind.  And they were scattered almost as far.

Colonists weren’t the only admirers of salt-fired German stoneware, however.  Many Native American burial sites included Westerwald jugs.  When pottery is done well, there are no boundaries to how far it will be collected.

Readings:
Stoneware in America.  Robert Hunter, ed.

Stoneware: White Salt-Glazed, Rhenish and Dry Body.  Gérard Gusset.  National Historic Parks and Sites Branch, Parks Canada, Environment Canada/Ministry of the Environment, Ottawa, Canada.  1980.

 

Technorati Tags: Reformation,beer,salt fired stoneware,Raeren stoneware,Freshcen stoneware,Siegburg stoneware,Westerwald stoneware,krugen,cannen,Chamber pots

Communist Vagabond Troublemakers

Swashbuckling tales replete with sword play and intrigue are sure-fire crowd pleasers.  But most pottery histories avoid that sort of thing.  Well…

First, the sword play.  Turn-of-the-19th-century Moravian potters of Salem NC employed colorful slipware patterns and playful forms quite in contrast to their strict religious estheticism.  Accounts of Salem market days tell of unruly mobs lunging for anything they could grab from the Moravians’ stalls.  At times the local militia had to come out – swords drawn – to keep the peace.  Moravian pottery was that good.

It all began (more or less) back in 1530.  Catholic zealots chased Protestant artisans out of Faenza Italy.  These artisans ended up in Moravia, southern Germany.  By century’s end they had either split into several groups or their pottery skills spread to other radical communist anabaptist protestant sects also sheltering in Moravia.  These migrant artisan groups, collectively known as “Habaners,” believed in strict  religious communal living and shared property ownership.

But the birth of European Capitalism was a messy thing.  The powers that be reacted savagely to religious deviants and peasant protests.  Trouble hounded the Habaners causing them to fan out across Franconia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Austria, Hungary,  Czechoslovakia, Switzerland and elsewhere.  Some such groups abandoned Europe altogether in favor of North Carolina (the “Moravians”) and elsewhere in America.

Haban pottery was originally limited to a narrow range of shapes, shunning superfluous and “unseemly” decoration.  But income from pottery sales outside the community proved too lucrative.  The bare Haban aesthetic adapted to the temperament of local cultures as the Habaners were buffeted about.  This interplay resulted in colorful slipware for the masses and majolica for the wealthy.   Haban majolica eventually became synonymous with Central European folk pottery between the 17th – 19th centuries.

The austere American Moravians similarly adapted to local raw materials and markets.  Thus the creative slipware defended by militia swords.

Depth of experience and motivation can sometimes be hard to discern in pottery as well as in people.  That’s something to keep in mind when looking at flowery painted pottery from long ago.

Readings:
Ceramics in America.  Robert Hunter, Ed.  University Press of New England/Lebanon, NH.  2009.

Ceramics in America.  Robert Hunter, Ed.  University Press of New England/Lebanon, NH.  2010.

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

Technorati Tags: Moravians,Moravian pottery,sword play,majolica,slipware,faenza,Habaner,European Capitalism,Reformation,peasant uprisings,Staffordshire Potteries

The Bloody Duke of Alva

Bernard Leach…

…I suppose it was only a matter of time before his name popped up…

…Well, I first heard about Leach, and his famous book on pottery, in college.  Some say Leach’s “A Potter’s Book” almost singlehandedly reformed craft ceramics.  In it he certainly sought to establish a standard that would be eternal.  When I finally saw the tome – it was just a little red book – my first thought was of another little red book.  This one by Chairman Mao.  “That’s it?”

I mention Leach because his book created an impression (at least in my eager mind) of a ‘golden age’ of English pottery during the Middle Ages.  We’d certainly be less today if Leach hadn’t expounded his ideas, and I do enjoy Medieval English pottery.  But by and large, English pottery from 600 to 1400AD was still in a pretty crude state.  True, a few monastic potters late in the period tried to keep up with continental trends.  But in general, the forms were limited to the “potts and panns” (pots simply being more tall than wide, and pans the opposite) of the dairy economy.  Households ate off treen ware (wooden items).  Food storage was crude.  Food preparation was cruder – unless you could afford glass, silver, and a household staff…

Between 1566 and 1648, many things changed.  A group of Spanish provinces, known today as “The Netherlands,” revolted.  The Calvinist Reformation was involved, but harsh foreign rule, as is usually the case, propelled the Dutch Republicans to fight.  Spain sought to snuff out this peasant uprising.  The man hired to do the dirty work was the Duke of Alva.  With his “Blood Court” behind him, the Duke encouraged his troops to a level of depravity not seen again for several centuries.  And that’s saying something!  (ie: Issuing, and trying to carry out, a death warrant against every living soul in the provinces.)  Eventually the Dutch cause won out.  But not before waves of refugees poured into increasingly Puritan (thanks again to Calvin) England.

Those Dutch refugees brought with them their food ways.  They drank from individual cups instead of one big bowl passed from hand to hand, they ate off of ceramic plates, etc.  Dutch potters brought their skill and knowledge.  In a few short years, whole villages of “cuppers” would form.  English potters would be copying Delftware.  And English pottery would blossom…

It is said that great beauty can arise from adversity.  English pottery was certainly enriched by refugees from the wanton devastation of Dutch society.  But if Spain had left the Dutch in peace, the English would have eventually figured it all out by themselves.  That would have been much better.

Readings:
English Delftware. GF Garner.  Van Nostrand Co., Inc./New York.  1948.

The English Country Pottery, Its History and Techniques. Peter Brears.  Charles Tuttle Co./Rutland, VT.  1971.

A Potter’s Book. Bernard Leach.  Transatlantic Arts, Inc./New York.  1976 (reprinted).

If These Pots Could Talk. Ivor Noel Hume.  Chipstone Press/Williamsburg.  2006.

Technorati Tags: Bernard Leach,Mao,middle ages,medieval England,John Calvin,Reformation,Duke of Alva,Delftware