Margarete Oppenheim
Margarete Oppenheim née Eisner (1857-1935) was renowned for collecting decorative art, a lifelong interest developed during her first marriage to Georg Reichenheim (1842-1903). After his passing, her focus widened leading to Margarete establishing herself as one of the most important early collectors of Modern art in Germany, with a particular interest in the work of Cézanne, van Gogh and Manet. Her patronage of the Berlin art world continued after her marriage to Franz Oppenheim (1852-1929) in 1907. A member of the German Society for East Asian Art, the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Association and the Association of Friends of Ancient Art, she frequently lent works from her collection to exhibitions and donated several works in her lifetime to Berlin museums. At the time of Margarete Oppenheim’s death on September 2, 1935, the collection consisted of silver vessels, ceramics, textiles, furniture, Asian art from the 16th to 18th centuries, as well as seminal French artists. The public auction of her estate, held by Julius Böhler in Munich in May 1936 featured more than 1,200 objects, including the present lot.


Böttger Red Stoneware Tankards
Tankards and vessels with cut faceted ornament were among the first pieces advertised for sale at the Leipzig Easter Fair in 1710: ‘Erstlich findet man Geschirre / als Tisch-Krüge / Thée-Bottgens / Türckische Caffée-Kannen und Aufsetzen nüztliche Sorten / von duncklen und hochrothen Farben / welche theils mit Zug- und Laubwerck künstlich geschnitten / theils auch wegen ihrer ungemeinen Härte / al sein Jaspis, so wohl godroniret oder glatt poliret / als auch eckigt und facet geschliffen sind / und vortrefflichen Lustre haben / auch einen hellen Thon / al sein Metall von sich geben’ (Firstly one finds vessels such as tankards, teapots, Turkish coffee pots and vases of required kinds, dark and deep red in color, which are partially cut to be decorated with Laub- und Bandelwerk ornament and partially – due to their exceptional hardness that equals jasper – gadrooned or polished plain, or cut in edges or facets, and have remarkable sheen as well as a resonant tone like metal)⁽¹⁾.

This tankard is a fine example of how Böttger’s factory embraced techniques which had previously only been used on precious stones and glass, and successfully adapted them to finish stoneware pieces. The majority of the exterior surface is a pattern of shimmering facets, all reflecting and catching the light at different angles.

It was originally thought that the glass-cutters achieved these remarkable gemuschelt surfaces (with multiple facets, such as the present lot) by cutting alone, but this was disproved by study of the plaster molds at Meissen, which clearly showed that the majority of the gemuschelt surface on some pieces was actually molded, and it was then finished by the Bohemian glass-cutters after firing⁽²⁾, a process which would have saved a great deal of time and labor⁽³⁾. Although this was the case for teapots, it was different for tankards, which were thrown⁽⁴⁾. The 1711 manufactory inventory includes twelve entries recording a total of 383 tankards at various stages of production, of which three were polished and gemuschelt, and in 1719 there was one gemuschelt tankard listed still at the factory⁽⁵⁾.

In 1710, the factory ‘conducteur’, Adam Heinrich Blumenthal, was sent to Bohemia to recruit a team of glass-cutters. He recruited Samuel Hölzel, his two sons and 27 other glass-cutters and polishers. Böttger’s plan for a grinding and polishing mill on the river Weißeritz was not completed until 1713, by which time the demand for stoneware was beginning to wane with the arrival of white porcelain. In 1712, there were only four glass workers left at the manufactory⁽⁶⁾. Although it is possible the present tankard could have been created shortly after 1712, it is more likely to have been made in the first few years of production.

Two tankards with cut facet decoration are illustrated by Willi Goder et al., Johann Friedrich Böttger, Die Erfindung des Europäischen Porzellans, Leipzig, 1982, fig. 60.

1. Barbara Szelegejd, Red and Black Stoneware and their Imitations in the Wilanów Collection, Bielsko-Biala, 2013, p. 223, citing I. Menzhausen and M. Mields, Böttgersteinzeug – Böttgerporzellan aus der Dresdener Porzellansammlung, Zum 250. Todestag Johann Friedrich Böttgers, Dresden, 1969, p. 14.
2. Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., 2013, p. 151.
3. Claus Bolz, ‘Formen des Böttgersteinzeugs im Jahre 1711’ in Keramik-Freunde der Schweiz, No. 96, March 1982, p. 8.
4. Barbara Szelegejd, ibid., p. 224, notes that Claus Bolz was unable to correlate any of the tankards recorded in the manufactory with plaster moulds in the August 1711 inventory of molds at Meissen (under numbers 1-143), Bolz, ibid., 1982, p. 35, but she also notes ‘the fact that fifty-three unfired items were already described as covered with a “honeycomb pattern”, fluted (or ribbed) indicates that the decoration was made from a mold, even before the red stoneware was hardened by fire’. However, Ulrich Pietsch notes that the unfired stoneware was cut with a knife, see Ulrich Pietsch ‘"Of red or brown porcelain" – decoration and refinement of Böttger stoneware’ in Dirk Syndram and Ulrike Weinhold (Ed.), Böttger Stoneware, Johann Friedrich Böttger and Treasury Art, Altenburg, 2009, p. 44.
5. Bolz, ‘Steinzeug und Porzellan der Böttgerperiode – Die Inventare und die Ostermesse des Jahres 1719 –’ in Keramos No. 167/168, April 2000, p. 44, table 4.
6. Ulrich Pietsch, ibid., Altenburg, 2009, p. 38.