Friedrich Karl Ens

Friedrich Karl Ens (* 1802 in Lauscha ; † November 5, 1865 there ) was the most important representative of porcelain painting in Lauscha, which experienced its heyday in the 19th century.

Beginnings of porcelain painting in Lauscha

With the introduction of glass blowing in front of the lamp, the glassworks in the region around Lauscha shifted the focus of their production from drinking vessels to semi-finished products for the home industry. With that, stained glass lost its importance. At the same time, the first factories began producing Thuringian porcelain in Limbach and Volkstedt , which opened up a new field of activity for the Lauscha glass painters in the emerging porcelain industry. Georg Wilhelm Greiner from Lauscha had been a colored painter since 1773 and, together with Johann Karl Heinold, had been tenant of the porcelain factory in Volkstedt founded by Georg Heinrich Macheleid in 1762 since 1782 . He decorated the vessels and plates with flowers, insects and fruits in the sharply outlined painting style typical of glass painting.

Johann Karl Ens (* 1759; † 1813), whose ancestors came from Weingarten in Württemberg and came to Middle Franconia as a forester , learned porcelain painting at the margravial porcelain factory in Bruckberg near Ansbach. When this company experienced a sharp decline, it moved to Thuringia in the late 1780s, where porcelain production was booming. Johann Karl Ens initially worked as a color painter for the porcelain factory founded by Gotthelf Greiner in Limbach and later also for Johann Friedrich Greiner in the Rauenstein porcelain factory in Rauenstein . In 1790 he married Christiane Greiner from the Greiner branch of glass painting and started his own business in Lauscha. The ever increasing sales of porcelain products brought enough orders for a modest company.

Friedrich Karl Ens

youth

Friedrich Karl Ens was born in Lauscha in 1802 as one of four siblings - two girls and two boys. Shortly after leaving school, he stood by his father's side as an independent assistant. His artistic inventiveness and creative power were impressive early on. After the early death of his father, he became the family breadwinner at the age of eleven. Further training could not be financed and Friedrich Karl had to acquire his knowledge and skills self-taught. At first he painted pipe bowls with hunting and riding scenes, which were very popular because of their liveliness and freshness. Porcelain pipes were particularly popular as a status symbol with the fraternities . The pipe bowls were shod in Ruhla . There they had to be carried on their backs in baskets. The arduous journey was worth it, a single carrying basket often contained goods worth 300 marks, a well-painted pipe bowl brought 3 - 3.5 guilders.

Companies

At the age of 19, Friedrich Karl Ens married the glassmaker's daughter Charlotte Müller from Schmalenbuche and founded his own workshop in the neighboring village of Igelshieb. Instead of the usual copying of templates, he designed his own motifs. He often took the subjects of his pattern books from his own observations of the wild animals in his immediate vicinity in the ridge area of ​​the Thuringian Slate Mountains . A peculiarity was that he never repeated a motif unless this was expressly ordered. He studied art literature on painting and comparative anatomy techniques until late at night.

In 1837 Friedrich Karl Ens joined the porcelain painting company Günther Greiner & Georg Wilhelm Greiner Sohn , which had been founded a decade earlier and which became world famous under the new name Ens & Greiner and won awards in Vienna, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago and Antwerp. The emerging lithography again offered him the opportunity for further development. In connection with an Offenbach lithographic printing company, he now also created numerous hunting pieces and genre pictures.

Friedrich Karl Ens was a hardworking artist, but not a talented businessman. His work did not bring him great wealth. In the last years of his life he created oil paintings on copper plates at 8 guilders each for a Nuremberg art dealer, most of which were sold abroad. The art-loving young Hereditary Prince and later Duke of Saxony-Meiningen , Georg II, visited him regularly when he went to deer hunting in the ducal domains of Igelshieb and Piesau in the “Zum Hirschen” inn in Igelshieb, and had the latest designs shown. But he withdrew his favor when he learned that Friedrich Karl Ens had acquired shares in the princely Schwarzburg Volkstedter porcelain factory, i.e. abroad, in 1861 . Previously, Ens was not allowed to exhibit his works in the Rudolstadt residence in Schwarzburg because there was no interest in such commissions from foreigners.

The last few years

Around 1855, porcelain painting played an important role as a branch of business in Lauscha. Friedrich Karl Ens employed up to 150 people at that time. The porcelain manufacturer in Volkstedt, now trading as Triebner, Ens & Co , owed a noticeable artistic improvement to its products to his sons, the modeller Eduard Ens and the porcelain painter and later company owner Karl Ens . Around 1894 they created the first top figurines and such a specialty of the house, in 1899 they founded the Karl Ens porcelain factory in Volkstedt and incorporated their father's company.

However, the height of porcelain painting in Lauscha was passed with the death of Friedrich Karl Ens. He died in 1865 of the consequences of severe pneumonia that he contracted on a stagecoach ride from Volkstedt to Lauscha. His grave can still be found today in the Lauscha cemetery.

reception

Because of the high sales among students and intellectuals of the time, the works of Friedrich Karl Ens are scattered all over the world, but are known to a limited group of experts as the work of an autodidact. In Lauscha itself there are only a few testimonies to his artistry. Antiques from the historic Ens & Greiner, Lauscha brand are now high-quality and sought-after collector's items.

swell

1. ↑ Prof. G. Brückner: Landeskunde des Herzogthums Meinigen , Volume 2: Die Topographie des Landes , Verlag Brückner and Renner, Meinigen 1853, p. 472 ff.

literature

• City of Lauscha (Hrsg.): Festschrift for the award of city rights. Friebel-Druck, Saalfeld 1957.
• Wally Eichhorn-Nelson : From Sonneberg to Rennsteighöhe. Publishing house Thuringia, Erfurt 1999, ISBN 3-89683-146-1