Pearl wreath

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The pearl wreath was a modern grave ornament between the 1870s and the 1950s .

While flower arrangements are used today as funeral wreaths and grave decorations, pearl grave wreaths came into fashion from the 1870s. Based on French models, wreaths were made from wire and glass beads and offered as grave decorations. They were mainly sold in southern Germany, but also in neighboring countries.

Manufacturing

The pearls were skewered by hand on wires and bent by hand into artistic figures. Flower motifs were often used. These were built into a wreath, the bouquet of which was created by machine. Oval center pieces with images of saints or sayings were incorporated in the middle of the wreaths. The pearls themselves came from factories in Bohemia , Moravia and Venice .

Wreaths of different sizes (and prices) were made. In 1880 wreaths cost between 50 pfennigs and 100 marks. At the 1881 Frankfurt patent and design fair, display wreaths weighing 350 pounds were shown.

Production sites

The tradition of making pearl wreaths originated in France and was introduced in Germany in the early 1880s. Production locations for pearl wreaths were mainly Strasbourg , Mulhouse , Příbram in Bohemia, Walldürn and Oberreifenberg . There were two companies in Oberreifenberg that were of considerable importance for the local economy. In addition to 40 permanent employees, around 125 home workers, including 30 to 40 children, were employed by 1912.

In 1957, production in Oberreifenberg was given up and devices and remaining stocks were sold to the last competing company in Walldürn. The former "pearl factory" in Oberreifenberg, built in 1907, is now privately owned and used as a residential building.

literature

  • Evelyn and Jürgen Ulzen (eds.): Grave decorations. Glass beads on wire. Special edition as a companion volume to the exhibition "Forbidden Grave Decoration" in the Museum for Sepulchral Culture Kassel, Kassel 2008.
  • Gottlieb Schnapper-Arndt : Five village communities on the high Taunus. A social statistical study of small peasantry, house industry and popular life. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1883 ( State and social science research. 4, 2 = 16, ZDB -ID 550024-2 ).
  • Beatrice Träger: Beginning in difficult times: Development of the Schmitten home industry. In: Ingrid Berg (Ed.): Heimat Hochtaunus. Kramer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-7829-0375-7 , pp. 271-276.
  • Gerhard Seib: Products of the "pearl wreath braiding" from Oberreifenberg. In: Yearbook of the Hochtaunuskreis. 1997, ISBN 3-7973-0643-1 , pp. 208-212.