Victor Mayer
Victor Mayer (born December 1, 1857 in Pforzheim ; † October 13, 1946 there ) founded the Victor Mayer jewelry factory in Pforzheim in 1890 . During the Art Nouveau era, the company u. a. based on the designs of well-known jewelry artists such as Georg Kleemann and the Munich secessionist Anton Krautheimer . During the Art Deco period and during the 1950s, the focus was shifted to fine gold and silver goods. From the 1970s onwards, jewelry was increasingly made again. From 1989 to 2009 the company continued the Fabergé production, which the Russian court jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé had to give up in 1917. Today's Victor Mayer GmbH & Co. KG is for high quality jewelry and for the preservation of historical craft techniques, such as. B. Glass enamel and guilloche , known worldwide.
Life
Victor Mayer was born in 1857 into an entrepreneurial family. From 1872 to 1877 he completed an apprenticeship as a steel engraver. Then he became one of the first students in the Pforzheimer Kunstgewerbeschule, founded in 1877 . After completing his military service from 1879 to 1882, he was finally able to leave for a long-planned stay in Vienna. There he gained experience in enamelling and guilloché, sophisticated techniques that are still used today at the Victor Mayer company. After his return to Pforzheim he continued his studies at the Grand Ducal School of Applied Arts and received commendations in drawing, modeling and design. In 1890 he married Lina, née Nobody. In the same year he founded the Vogel & Mayer jewelry factory in Pforzheim together with the businessman Herrmann Vogel . After Herrmann Vogel left the company in 1895 due to discrepancies, Victor Mayer continued to run it under his own name. In 1932 he withdrew from day-to-day business and handed over his shares in equal parts to his son-in-law Edmund Mohr and his son Oskar Mayer. He died on October 13, 1946 in Pforzheim. His daughter Else Mayer was a nun, founder of the Erlöserbund and, as its superior general, one of the pioneers of the German women's movement .
plant
Victor Mayer's jewelry creation spans four periods: around 1885 he began at the Grand Ducal School of Applied Arts in Pforzheim in the style of historicism , continued around 1900 in Art Nouveau , switched to Art Deco after the First World War and finished with his late designs from 1940 onwards the 1950s predicted. As documents from the company archive show, Victor Mayer played a key role in the design work until shortly before his death; In 1945, at the age of 88, he was still making numerous designs for jewelry that were sold well into the 1960s.
Company history
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Faberg%C3%A9-Winter-Ei.jpg/220px-Faberg%C3%A9-Winter-Ei.jpg)
Victor Mayer GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 1890 by Victor Mayer and Herrmann Vogel. After Herrmann Vogel left the company in 1895, Victor Mayer continued to run it under his own name. During the First World War, Victor Mayer's two eldest sons, Victor and Julius, died. The company founder intended you to be the successor. Two of his remaining children, Maria and Oskar Mayer, then took care of the commercial side, while Victor Mayer took over the technical management and the design work.
After Maria Edmund Mohr married, he was accepted into the management in 1925. Victor Mayer officially withdrew from day-to-day business in 1932 and handed over his shares in equal parts to his only remaining son Oskar and his son-in-law Edmund Mohr. Until 1965 the company was run equally by both. Victor Mayer's two grandchildren, Herbert Mohr-Mayer and his cousin Hubert Mayer, took over the management in 1965. When Hubert Mayer died unexpectedly in 1989, Herbert Mohr-Mayer acquired his cousin's shares in the company and became the sole owner. In 1989 the company was licensed to manufacture Fabergé jewelry and objects such as the famous Fabergé eggs . The company had great success with this until 2009. In 2003 Herbert Mohr-Mayer handed over management to his eldest son, Marcus Oliver Mohr, and left the company. The great-grandson of Victor Mayer leads the company now in its fourth generation.
literature
- Geza von Habsburg: Fabergé yesterday and today, Hirmer, 2005, ISBN 3-7774-2635-0
- Herbert Mohr-Mayer: Victor Mayer (1857-1946). Social, humorous, creative. Life and work of a jewelry manufacturer from Pforzheim , Verlag Regionalkultur Ubstadt-Weiher 2007, ISBN 978-3-89735-511-8
- Herbert Mohr-Mayer: Of golden eggs and other treasures. The history of the house of Victor Mayer from the "Golden Twenties" to 2003 , Verlag Regionalkultur Ubstadt-Weiher 2010, ISBN 978-3-89735-620-7
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/industrie/edles-aus-pforzheim-die-goldkraemer-seite-2/2749136-2.html?ticket=ST-1730102-OB6gzqNCckSmhgSIS0We-ap2 Handelsblatt , Tanja Kewes, Die Goldkrämer , December 24, 2006
- ↑ a b c Fabergé egg objects from the Victor Mayer manufactory , Anne-Barbara Kern, Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart, 2015, ISBN 978-3-89790-434-7
Web links
- Website of the Victor Mayer GmbH & Co. KG
- Victor Mayer as Fabergé's foreman on the Fabergé homepage
- The story of Fabergé
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Mayer, Victor |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Jewelry entrepreneur in Pforzheim |
DATE OF BIRTH | December 1, 1857 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Pforzheim |
DATE OF DEATH | October 13, 1946 |
Place of death | Pforzheim |