Storage stoneware

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Speicher Steinzeug is a type of ceramic product that was produced in the late Middle Ages and modern times in the pottery of Speicher in the southern Eifel . The spectrum of the stoneware vessels produced mainly comprised simple utensils. Along with Binsfeld and Herforst, Speicher was one of the centers of Eifel ceramics , which is part of the Rhenish stoneware . High-quality handcrafted stoneware of supraregional importance, as is known from Cologne , Raeren or Siegburg , was not made in Speicher.

Historical development

Already in Roman and Frankish times potters were resident in Speicher. Fast stoneware production began in the 12th century. The Töpfer warehouse was first mentioned in a document in 1293.

From the early 14th century, master potters began producing real stoneware. They joined the development of the other Rhenish pottery centers, which began in Siegburg and Cologne. A yellow-gray body was characteristic of the vessels, some of which were provided with a salt glaze . In the 14th and 15th centuries, the range of shapes consisted of simple utensils and hardly differed from the types that were made in the rest of the Rhineland. A sharp lip, spiral-shaped external rotating grooves and a protruding wave base are characteristic of medieval pottery from Speicher. The early vessels still had a dark, purple-brown mud engobe with an irregular salt glaze, which became more even with the vessels of the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 16th and 17th centuries, there was also occasional cobalt blue painting.

In 1485 the Trier cathedral chapter allowed the master potters from Speicher, Binsfeld and Herforst to found a guild called the "Eulner Brotherhood" which was responsible for the Holy Cross altar in the parish church of Speicher. In the 17th century, as a result of the Thirty Years' War, there was an economic collapse in the pottery industry in the southern Eifel.

In the middle of the 17th century, only five master potters were resident in Speicher. During the 18th century, potters from the Westerwald settled in the southern Eifel. The pottery center expanded from Speicher to Bruch to Niersbach and Zemmer . In 1722 the Brucher potters founded their own guild, independent of the Eulner Brotherhood. Nevertheless, they continued to share the clay deposits. The immigrant potters brought with them their technical knowledge of the production of blue-gray goods in the style of Westerwald stoneware . They introduced the red technique and cobalt blue painting. As a result, the Steinzeug warehouse experienced a new boom, which lasted into the 19th century. The range of shapes expanded to include plates, bowls, bottles, jugs, butter churns and other products that are otherwise typical of the Westerwald. Vessels with high-quality handicraft decors were not made in the southern Eifel during this period either.

During the 19th century, the demand for stoneware fell across Europe. The potters gradually gave up. At the end of the 19th century there was only one pottery left. Jacob Plein-Wagner founded the stone ware factory Jac. Plein-Wagner & Sons, which mainly produced milk satellites, vessels for skimming or souring milk. In 1886 Plein-Wagner began the industrial production of a “milk skimmer in the shape of a fat”, for which he received a patent and which by 1910 had been sold around a million times. Today the company manufactures chimney systems under the name PLEWA and maintains a private ceramic museum with exhibits from local stoneware production from the Jacob Plein-Wagner collection.

Research history

Siegfried Loeschcke first published an article on the stoneware storage facility in the Trierische Heimatbl Blätter in 1922. So far, no professional archaeological excavations have taken place in Speicher. There are, however, numerous lost ovens in the local area known that have not yet been investigated. In 1979, during construction work on the market square in Speicher, larger fragments were discovered. Some of these finds ended up in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier and were partially presented in 1990 by Peter Seewaldt.

literature

  • Klaus Freckmann: Rhenish pottery craft. Eifel, Moselle, Hunsrück, Nahe, Rheinhessen. Rheinland-Verlag Cologne, 1977.
  • Bärbel Kerkhoff-Hader: The potters' way of life and work in the South West Eifel. A contribution to stoneware research in the Rhineland. Rheinisches Archiv 110. Bonn 1980.
  • Siegfried Loeschcke: Sound industry from Speicher and the surrounding area. Trierische Heimatblätter 1, Lintz Verlag, Trier 1922.
  • Peter Seewaldt: Rhenish stoneware. Inventory catalog of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier. Series of publications of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier no. 3. Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, Trier 1990. P. 21ff.
  • Rolf Wihr: The manufacture of salt-glazed stoneware in a pottery in the southern Eifel. Keramos 61, 1973. pp. 49-58.
  • Catalog of the Jacob Plein-Wagner collection. (PDF document; 658 kB)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gregor Brand: Jakob Plein-Wagner. Master potters, entrepreneurs and artists from Speicher. In: Eifelzeitung. May 4, 2011, accessed on January 17, 2014 : "As a major technical innovation, he succeeded in developing a milk skimmer in the shape of a fat in 1886 ..."
  2. ↑ Loeschke 1922.
  3. ↑ Seewaldt 1990.