- Museum number
- 1980,1017.2
- Description
-
Tableware, 'Hallesche' form; hard-paste porcelain; coffee-cup and saucer; white with border decoration of painted matt gold bands ('Goldringe').
- Production date
-
1929 (shape designed)
-
1931 (decoration designed)
-
1930 (first produced)
-
1937 (made)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 13 centimetres (saucer)
-
Height: 5 centimetres (cup)
- $Inscriptions
-
-
-
-
- Curator's comments
- In set with 1980,1017.1-7
Text from J. Rudoe, 'Decorative Arts 1850-1950. A catalogue of the British Museum collection'. 2nd ed. no.112b.
In 1929 Giinther von Pechmann became the new director of the Staatliche Porzellanmanufaktur (SPM). Pechmann, a committed member of the Deutsche Werkbund, had previously directed the Neue Sammlung in Munich, founded in 1925, and had already exhibited works from Halle there. In November 1929 he set up an association between the Porzellanmanufaktur in Berlin and the Kunstgewerbeschule Halle at Burg Giebichenstein, where an experimental porcelain kiln had been installed earlier that year. The prototypes were designed at Halle and then modified until they had passed mass-production tests carried out in Berlin, where they were then industrially manufactured. The whole process could take up to two years. The Berlin factory paid for all costs in Halle and brought Friedlander to Berlin to study production techniques for porcelain.
It is thus all the more remarkable that the coffee and chocolate service known as 'Hallesche Form' was first advertised by the SPM as early as February 1930 (Die Form, 5 Jahrgang, Heft 3, February 1930, 103; Keramische Rundschau, Jahrgang 38, no. 8, 1930, p. ix). The design for the tea service followed in June-July 1930 (Schneider, K., 'Keramik der Kunstgewerbeschule Burg-Giebichenstein 1925-1933, 1987, pl. 43, 38). When it was first offered in plain white it created a sensation (Hirzel, S., 'Kunsthandwerk und manufaktur in Deutschland seit 1945', Berlin 1953, 51), but soon various decorative patterns appeared; these consisted of simple coloured rims so that the form was not obscured. 'Goldringe' was introduced in 1931 and remained among the most popular patterns (for a complete service, see Berlin 1989, Bauhaus -Archiv Museum, 'Keramikund Bauhaus', cat. no. 199). From 1932 the service was also produced in celadon green. Kollmann, E. & Jarchow, M., 'Berliner Porzellan 1763-1963', 2 vols, Munich 1987, pl. 500 illustrates a later painted decoration of doves. For further discussion and full contemporary literature, see Passarge, W., 'Deutsche Werkkunst der Gegenwart', 2nd ed. 1937 (1st ed. 1936), 78; Brohan. K.H., III, 'Kunst der 20er und 30er Jahre'. Sammlung Karl H. Brohan, Berlin 1985, Band III, 'Gemaide, Skulpturen, Kunsthandwerk, Industriedesign', Berlin 1985, 42; Schneider 1987 and Berlin 1989, 154-70. Like Petri's 'Urbino' service (see Cat. 231), 'Hallesche Form' sought to apply the simple unomamented forms of industrial porcelain to tableware.
After training at the Bauhaus under Gerhard Marcks and then in the Pottery Workshop at Dornburg from 1919 to 1925, Friedlander directed the pottery workshop at Burg Giebichenstein, Halle, together with Marcks until 1933, when she emigrated to Holland and set up a workshop with her husband, Franz Wildenhain, at Putten. In 1940 they moved to California. 'Hallesche Form' was illustrated in The Studio Yearbook for 1933, 13 7, as designed by Friedlander with decoration by Petri; when it appeared in a later issue (1939, 126) it is described as by the 'Werkstatten der Stadt Halle'. Friedlander's name had been suppressed in Germany, but ironically the opposite page shows ceramics from the Wildenhain Workshop at Putten.
Information supplementary to Rudoe 1994: For more images of this service see: G. Lueg, 'Design im 20. Jahrhundert', Cologne 1989, p. 42 (colour plate) and nos. 227-229.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited: BM, 20th-century gallery, 1994-2006
- Acquisition date
- 1980
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- 1980,1017.2
