Coffee company

The coffee company , also known as the family at the coffee table , is a group of more than one person designed in 1770/1771 by the French modeller Jean Jacques Desoches especially for the Fürstenberg porcelain manufacturer . At the time, the manufacturer's name was: A small coffee table with 8 figures dressed as 4 large and 4 small ones .

Front view

Rear view

prehistory

Desoches came to Fürstenberg in 1769 , where he stayed until 1774. During this time he was one of three French modellers at the manufactory . Desoches was not only considered the best and most sensitive, but also the most hardworking of Fürstenberg's Poussierers and was particularly known for depicting detailed multi-person groups. During his five years in Fürstenberg, Desoches created around 45 individual figures and groups of people, of which the coffee company was the most complicated to produce.

description

The individual parts necessary for the standing woman

Four individual steps were necessary to create a copy: First the original had to be broken down into its individual components, then an impression (the negative form ) was made of each piece , followed by setting up the working models and finally producing the working models. Desoches' original coffee company consisted of 108 individual parts, which in turn consisted of 68 working models.

The group of eight people exhibited in the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg is located on an irregularly oval-shaped base plate with a checkerboard pattern (alternating white and light brown pattern) and surrounding gold-decorated rocailles .

Top view

The 84 individual parts of the coffee company as well as the color palette used.

It shows four adults, three women and a man, as well as four children, two girls and two boys, as well as a small dog. All persons are dressed in the Rococo style . In detail (from left to right and from front to back) are shown: a sitting nanny with a little girl on her right knee, a little girl and a little boy standing in the middle in front of the wooden table, a young woman standing pouring coffee and finally a little boy kneeling in front of it and hugging a little dog. Two of the children, namely the two girls, are wearing shoes and each has a head covering. The two boys, however, are barefoot and bareheaded, so they symbolize the saying " Back to nature" attributed to the Swiss philosopher and enlightener Jean-Jacques Rousseau ! . Based on the children's clothes can be assumed that the girls a higher status members than boys. The child on the woman's knee was (mistakenly ) depicted as a girl (with a lace-up corset ) in the version from 1829 in the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg . Originally, however, it was the portrayal of a boy. When the group of figures was created (around 1770), it was still customary for boys up to the age of three to wear skirts. It was not until around 1780 that English fashion was followed in Germany and boys' trousers were put on. The woman who pours the coffee, unlike all other adults, does not wear shoes either. A young (love) couple sits in their backs and “turned away” from them. The elegantly dressed lady has put her left arm around the shoulder of the gentleman , who is also dressed according to the latest fashion , but, apparently shy, slightly backs away from the man who is clearly leaning towards her, probably for a kiss, who encircles her waist with his right hand holds her right hand with her left hand.

In the middle of the group of people there is a cross-legged wooden table on which there are three cups with saucers, a small milk jug and a lidded container with several sugar cubes. The dishes are decorated in white with a gold rim and a reddish-brown floral decoration. The standing woman pours coffee from a pot with her right hand, while she supports herself on the edge of the table with her left. Behind her, on the floor, is a small wooden box, in which perhaps all the utensils for the coffee table have been stowed away. Porcelain , coffee and sugar , as luxury goods, indicate privileged living conditions.

The group exhibited in the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg is a version from 1829. It is 19.5 cm high, 22.5 cm wide and 19 cm deep and comes closest to the original from 1770.

reception

The group is one of the most popular groups of figures in Fürstenberg and is the most important work from Desoches' time in Fürstenberg as well as one of the most important works of the manufactory in the 18th century. The porcelain group was included in the Alt-Fürstenberg model series at the beginning of the 20th century , in which old figure and vase models were reissued. These new editions were provided with a porcelain brand specially developed for this model series.

If desired, the coffee company is still made today and can be purchased.

Specimens preserved in museums

Copy from the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum

The oldest surviving coffee company dates from 1770, the first year of sales for the porcelain group. It is glazed in pure white. How many specimens were made since 1770 and in what form is unknown. Copies are preserved in private collections and museums around the world. The different shapes differ greatly in their quality. Some of them are colored, some are pure white. The different times of origin can be recognized for some by the type of dishes. Some of the people are also arranged differently. In the changed representations, the changes both in coffee culture and in the moral concepts of the respective time of origin can be seen.

• Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig (color)
• LWL Museum for Art and Culture in Münster (in pure white)
• Museum Schloss Fürstenberg (colored, version from 1829)
• Städtisches Museum Braunschweig (created around 1830, in pure white made of biscuit porcelain )

literature

• Ulla Heise, Beatrix Freifrau von Wolff-Metternich: The coffee company. Three centuries of coffee culture on the Weser. An exhibition by the Fürstenberg Porcelain Museum and the Eduscho Collection. Nordwestdeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Bremen / Bremerhaven 1992, ISBN 3-927857-35-1 .
• Elisabeth Reissinger: The Coffee Society. In: Miscell the Städtisches Museum Braunschweig. No. 51, ISSN  0934-6201 . Braunschweig 1996.
• Christian Scherer : The Fürstenberg porcelain. Reimer, Berlin 1909 ( archive.org ).
• Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld : Porcelain from European factories. Schmidt, Berlin 1912 ( archive.org full text). 3rd edition 1920 ( archive.org full text). 6th edition completely revised by Erich Köllmann: Klinkhardt & Biermann, Braunschweig 1974.
• Hildegard Westhoff-Krummacher: Does luxury make you happy? A Fürstenberg porcelain group answers. The coffee company of JJ Desoches 1769/69. In: Keramos. Journal of the Gesellschaft der Keramikfreunde eV Düsseldorf. Issue 142, 1993, pp. 3-14.

Web links

Commons : Coffee Society 1770  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld: Porcelain of the European factories. P. 160.
2. ^ Karen Polzer: Art History Fürstenberger Porzellan. Inaugural dissertation, Münster (Westf.) 1967, p. 81.
3. ^ Siegfried Ducret: Fürstenberger porcelain. Volume III: Figures. Klinkhardt & Biermann Verlag, Braunschweig 1965, p. 142.
4. ^ Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld: Porcelain of the European factories. P. 158.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Beatrix Freifrau von Wolff-Metternich: Fürstenberg porcelain: a breviary. Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1976, p. 50.
6. ^ Christian Scherer: Coffee Society . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 9 : Delaulne-Dubois . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1913, p. 141 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
7. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Elisabeth Reissinger: The coffee company. Page 1.
8. ↑ Beatrix Freifrau von Wolff Metternich & Manfred Mainz: The Porcelain Manufactory Fürstenberg , Volume I: A cultural history in the mirror of Fürstenberg porcelain . Prestel 2004, ISBN 3-7913-2921-9 , pp. 110f.
9. ↑ Christian Scherer: The Fürstenberg porcelain. P. 107 ( archive.org ).
10. ↑ The coffee company "a coffee table with 8 figures as 4 large and 4 small ones dressed" (later version ) on museum-digital.de
11. ↑ Christian Lechelt : The porcelain manufacturer Fürstenberg , Volume III: From the privatization in 1859 to the present day . Appelhans 2016, ISBN 978-3-944939-23-0 , pp. 64f.
12. ^ The coffee company from the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg on museum-digital.de

Remarks

1. ↑ Photo of the base plate with a clear (fire) crack on hatmuseum-digital.de
2. ↑ The stamp of the group exhibited in the Museum Schloss Fürstenberg, affixed to the inside of the edge, is a mirror image of an intertwined C with a crown and is intended to represent the monogram of Duke Karl II. Of Braunschweig , great-grandson of the manufactory's founder, Duke Karl I of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . The monogram indicates that the manufacture was run under the reign of Charles II at the time this shape was created.