Tankard: C.3-2023

Place(s) associated

• Westerwald ⪼ Germany

Acquisition and important dates

Method of acquisition: Given (2023) by Glasscock, Robin E.

Dating

19th Century, Late-20th Century, Early#
C. 1880 - 1910

Note

Westerwald stoneware is a general term applied to cobalt-stained, salt-glazed utilitarian pottery that has been made since the 1500s in the Kannenbäckerland, or ‘Jug-Baking Country’— a small region of western Germany to the east of the Rhine, situated in the southwestern portion of the Westerwald mountain range. Known for its reliability and authenticity, it was traded globally until the later eighteenth-century, when it began to struggle to compete with other ceramics, most notably European porcelain. However, various technical innovations, including the introduction of ironstone in 1864, and the adaptation of mould-making technology after 1873, transformed the industry, allowing Westerwald wares to be made in moulds previously carved in intaglio with the relief motif, so that the vessel came out of the mould already complete with the decoration in relief moulded. This enabled production at a larger scale, which entirely reinvigorated this ceramic tradition. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many Westerwald makers produced revivalist and historicist stoneware, copying a range of historic styles, including Renaissance and Baroque, or reimagined elements of Classical history. Some pieces, such as this stein with its asymmetrical decoration, demonstrate experimentation with the new Jugendstil style, before this was seized upon more radically by designers such as Henry van de Velde (1863-1957), Peter Behrens (1868-1940) and Richard Riemerschmid (1868-1957).

School or Style

Revivalism