Featured Waechtersbach tray Hans Christiansen design

Hi dear Members,

I just wanted to share with you my latest find, this Art Nouveau serving tray/cake platter made by Waechtersbach and designed by Hans Christiansen. The decor pattern is called "Darmstädter Rose", around 1905.
After brief reserch, I found few trays with same roses design, but moulded in different metal mount.
I noticed it a the end of my shopping marathon, so I literally had to scoop out the last coins of my wallet to buy it
Anyway, it's a beautiful piece, I think.

 

Very nice, nastina.
The last mark is for Gebrüder Holzschuher, silverplate manufacturers in Schleiz, Thuringia.

Gebrüder means Brothers. Holzschuher is their surname, but it also means wooden shoes maker, hence the shape of the mark.

 

Any, actually, exactly about this mark I couldn't find info, so thank you very much for revealing this for me

 

I've read that Villeroy and Boch produced such trays with metal trim by Dannhorn. This is the first I've seen identified as Waechtersbach, which really doesn't mean much except that I have updated my file. It's a beautiful piece. Nice Secessionist vibe.

 

Sweet!

 

Looks classic Jugendstil to me, with that linear pattern.
The "Darmstädter Rose" is a design element from the Mathildenhöhe artist colony, which was also Jugendstil.

 

No matter.. last coins in the purse well spent.

 

For me all the names/marks/patterns were something new when I started my research because when I saw this tray, my only thought was that it is art nouveau, or art deco - at this point my knowledge ended So it were few interesting hours of learning something new while searching.

 

Fully agree, don't regret at all

 

AFAIK, Jugendstil and secessionist were of the same era and similar in design. I should google.

 

They were the same era, but different countries and different designs. Jugendstil in Germany, Secessionist in Vienna and to some extent in Prague. Both Vienna and Prague were in the Habsburg empire at the time.

Art Nouveau was 'new art', a philosophy that moved away from the conventions of the established art world. It was expressed differently in different regions.

Jugendstil was named after a 'new art' magazine called "Die Jugend".
The linear side of Jugendstil was the most 'stark' of Art Nouveau styles. This tray is an example.
Jugendstil also had a French/Belgian inspired style, which is Art Nouveau as the general public knows it, with whiplash motifs and flourishes.

Secessionist was the 'city style' of Austrian and Bohemian Art Nouveau. It had the most artistic freedom of the Art Nouveau styles, which means that you can come across many different personal expressions of the Art Nouveau philosophy.

To complicate things, the term Jugendstil was also used in the Netherlands (along with local terms) and in Austria outside Vienna. The styles associated with Dutch and Austrian Jugendstil were different from German Jugendstil. I won't go into that now.

 

I just remembered the time where I was accused of being "rude" on the eBay PGP board after having pointed out that such items were not from a single maker but collaborations between ceramics companies like V&B, Waechtersbach or Roesler and metalware companies like WMF or Max Dannhorn.

One of the few things I did not get pink slapped for, LOL!

 

Oh, those ebay boards and pink slaps! I learned a lot from the pgp board, though.

 

Thanks for the info -- I now feel better informed. Very interesting era artistically!

 

Yes, design became widely regarded as 'applied art'. That meant that people weren't only trained as craftspeople, but as designers in a broader sense. It led to art forms influencing each other even more than in earlier times, and a greater sense of artistic freedom.