Jan Emens Mennicken

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Schnell Jan Emens Mennickens (right) in comparison with a vessel of the same type from Hans Hilgers from Siegburg (left).

Jan Emens Mennicken (* around 1540; † around 1594) was a master potter who worked in Raeren in the Duchy of Limburg , now in Belgium , between 1568 and 1587 . After 1587 he emigrated to the Westerwald , where his trail later disappears.

Live and act

Mennicken was born around 1540 as the son of the potter Emont Mennicken from the Raeren district of Neudorf and was recorded for the first time on July 2, 1560. In 1565 he married Geirt (Gertrude) Pira, the daughter of a Walhorner aldermen. Along with Anno Knütgen, Mennicken is considered to be one of the leading master potters of the Rhineland High Renaissance . He signed his vessels made of Raeren stoneware with IEM or, more often, IE. Obviously Mennicken lived or sat in the Cologne and Siegburg area for a while , as his vessels initially showed typical features from these regions.

It was not until 1576 that Mennicken found his own style, and from 1584 he was the first manufacturer of Rhenish stoneware to experiment with cobalt blue salt glazes , for which the raw material had to be imported from Bohemia . In addition, around 1587 he introduced a clay in Raeren that was poorer in iron than the clays previously used there and that was burned to gray shards. Around this time Mennicken wandered for unknown reason in the Westerwald area, where works with his monogram appeared. There he laid the foundations for the production of blue-gray stoneware, which from the 17th century onwards as Westerwald stoneware became the leading type of goods among the Rhenish stoneware. From 1594 Mennickens track is lost and nothing is known about the place and year of death.

literature

  • Heinz Warny: Pictures of Life from East Belgium , Grenz-Echo Verlag, Eupen 2019, pp. 60–62 ISBN 978-3-86712-146-0
  • Karl Koetschau : Rhenish stoneware. Munich 1924. p. 44ff.
  • Gisela Reineking von Bock: stoneware. Decorative Arts Museum of the City of Cologne. Cologne 1986. p. 62ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koetschau 1924, p. 42.

Web links

Commons : Jan Emens Mennicken  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Mennicken, Jan Emens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Jan Emens
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Master potter in the Duchy of Limburg
DATE OF BIRTH 16th Century
DATE OF DEATH 16th century or 17th century