Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann

Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann (born April 6, 1777 in Burgdorf ; † July 29, 1828 in Burgdorf ) was the second potter and stove builder of an important Burgdorf pottery dynasty.

Life

Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann was the son of Emanuel Aeschlimann (1751–1832) and Anna Ingold. Godparents included the potter Johannes Jakob Gammeter (1734–1805) who had his workshop in the neighborhood (Hofstatt 7) and Anna Gränicher, the wife of the potter Johann Heinrich Gammeter . The third godfather was the master tailor Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann (1747–1832), the father's brother. He was also the host of the tailors' guild at Schmiedengasse 1.

At the time the father's workshop was rebuilt at Rütschelengasse 23, the 17-year-old Hafner Joh. Heinrich Aeschlimann (apparently already very successfully) worked in the workshop. On August 16, 1794 he received an official order from the city of Burgdorf: "Instead of the different-colored vessel on the Räth and Burger-Stuben stove, MeHrn want the young Hafner Aeschlimann to place an urn of the same color there."

Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann married Maria Aeschlimann (1777–1839) from Burgdorf in 1798, daughter of the cooper Johann Aeschlimann from Rütschelengasse 15. He presumably also ran the pottery workshop from this point on. On April 28, 1805, the Aeschlimann-Aeschlimann couple had a daughter named Maria Henriette. In September 1806 a son Heinrich Aeschlimann followed (September 14, 1806 - February 1, 1866), who later also became Hafner. Another son Karl Eduard Aeschlimann was born in August 1808 and a daughter Elise Carolina was baptized in September 1812.

For the years 1805 to 1809 it can be proven that Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann was responsible for the municipal supervision of the picking up of the grubs and the beetles. It is possible that the cockchafer infestation in the urban forests was particularly high in these years and the potter was happy to earn extra income. In 1822 a complaint was made that Heinrich Aeschlimann had pebbles (probably quartz pebbles) stamped in the specialty pounder (finely powdered quartz was part of the glaze). The key to this facility is only to be given to those people who have the right to have spices stamped in it. Joh. Heinrich Aeschlimann died on July 29, 1828, heavily in debt.

plant

Of all the beautiful tiled stoves that Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann made in his workshop, only small remains have survived today. The oldest dated stove tile dates from 1817. It names the master stoner and also his stove painter , Johann Heinrich Egli from Aarau. Egli (1776–1852), from Nussberg near Winterthur, had moved to Aarau in 1813 . Until 1852 he was one of the most important stove painters in the region. His works in the Biedermeier style with humorous, moral or political stove sayings shaped the stove landscape in the cantons of Bern, Aargau, Lucerne, Basel-Landschaft and Solothurn.

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  Stove tile by Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann and the stove painter Johann Heinrich Egli, 1817

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  Stove tile by Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann and the stove painter Johann Heinrich Egli, 1818

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  Oven tile with fruit prices by Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann and the oven painter Johann Heinrich Egli, 1818, from an oven from Thörigen

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  Stove tile by Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann and the stove painter Johann Heinrich Egli, 1818, from a stove from Wangen a. A.

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  Stove tile by Johann Heinrich Aeschlimann 1825, unknown stove painter

Aeschlimann and Egli created a very special tiled stove in 1818 for Niklaus Gigax and his wife Anna Barbara Haueter, who had the Löwen inn in Thörigen , Langenthalstrasse 1, rebuilt in 1816 . An important tile on the stove reports the most important fruit prices in 1817 and 1818 ( kernels = peeled spelled , potatoes = potatoes). The figures show the extreme market situation in 1817 when, after the year without summer 1816, food prices exploded. At times there was a great famine in Switzerland. For a better understanding you have to convert the prices: 1 measure (= 14.01 liters or approx. 10 kg) of peeled spelled cost four times as much in 1817 as in 1818, 1 measure of potatoes cost 120 or 10 kreuzers, ie twelve times as much!

Another oven by Aeschlimann and Egli from 1818 was once located in Wangen an der Aare, on the first floor of the dye works at Rotfarbgasse 7, which may have been built in 1817. The tile with the signatures of painter and Hafner shows next to an urn the motto:

This is how man has been at all times,
this is how he is young, this is how he remains old, he is
hot towards small things,
and cold towards big things.

It is an aphorism published in 1748 by the German lawyer and enlightener Magnus Gottfried Lichtwer (1719–1783) who lived in Wittenberg and Halberstadt.

In 1825, in Aeschlimann's workshop, we found a completely different stove painter whose style, compared to Johann Heinrich Egli, can only be described as "rural-moral". One of the tiles bears the slogan "Order gives every house happy happiness at every glance". The stove is said to come from Thunstetten Castle .

literature

• Andreas Heege: Of masterpieces, stove tiles and pipes - The Hafner Aeschlimann in Burgdorf. Burgdorfer Jahrbuch 84, 2016, 19–48.

Web links

• Sources and information on the Burgdorfer Hafner dynasty Aeschlimann