Elberfeld marble
The Elberfeld marble is a marble-like limestone that was marketed as a real high-quality marble at the time it was found.
history
On November 4, 1920, the sensational news went through the press that marble had been found in Elberfeld , then an independent town and now a district of Wuppertal . The find was made in the Dorp pit on In der Beek street (near the Beek farm ) in a bed at a depth of 150 meters. Contemporary experts equated the quality of the stone with that of the famous Carrara marble . The regional daily press in Elberfeld, Düsseldorf and Cologne, the Freie Presse , General-Anzeiger , Düsseldorfer Tageblatt and Düsseldorfer General-Anzeiger reported euphorically in this connection about a limited partnership Engels & Co., which was specially founded by Paul Engels and Gustav Rubbel . Only the Free Press expressed their skepticism.
The skepticism was justified and the euphoria quickly evaporated: the stone was not real marble, just marble-like limestone. However, the company Engels & Co. produced small numbers of counter tops, window sills and control panels from this material, as well as small works of art. A desk set made of gray marble is said to be in the Wülfrather Niederbergisches Heimatmuseum . A fruit bowl made of white marble and another desk set made of red marble are privately owned.
In the possession of the Wuppertal Von der Heydt Museum there is an approximately 60 centimeter high sculpture of a cat made from this material. It was created by the artist Carl Moritz Schreiner . The city bought the cat for 20,000 Reichsmarks at the time.
The Dorp quarry was closed in the 1940s.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Paul Reising, Der Eulenkopfweg - The history of stones, plants, animals and people on the north-western edge of the city of Wuppertal , Hammer Verlag, ISBN 3-87294-282-4
- ^ With Paul Reising, News from the Eulenkopfweg - The history of stones, plants, animals and people on the north-western edge of the city of Wuppertal , Hammer Verlag, ISBN 3-87093-068-3 , p. the name is wrongly given as Ernst Moritz Schreiner; Udo Garweg: Wuppertaler Künstlerverzeichnis , Wuppertal 2000, ISBN 3-89202-042-6 , p.