Big Pot…
Posted: October 1, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: glaze, pottery, Roth, sunshine, vase, west german ceramics, West German Pottery Leave a comment »I went through a period of taking pictures of ‘Big Pot Little Pot’ combinations, but today’s version is just pure and simple: BIG POT. This amazing pot is appearing courtesy of Richard (@dipperdog), a collector of West German Pottery who really knows his stuff, seeking out the very best in in the WGP world. You can be assured that if Richard likes it, it’s something of good design, style and quality.
Giant Roth - Picture courtesy of Richard (@dipperdog)
This is made by the Roth factory, and I wouldn’t say they were normally known for their gigantic pottery. Skilful, unusual and detailed glazes, yes… but not size. They are usually a quality over quantity type of company. This one seems to combine both, however.
Roth pot - picture courtesy of Richard (@dipperdog)
Look at that design – those handles are like the loops of a bow, or a cat’s ears. In fact, that’s exactly what it is now I’m looking at it – a cat’s face! I’m sorry, I have this odd thing of constantly looking for faces in everything, along with comparing people to animals and trying to name everything.
Anyway, that weird fact about me aside, this is a lovely pot and I’m so glad Richard let me post it up here. I’m off to a gig tonight, to see Beth Jeans Houghton at the Deaf Institute. I was there last night with friends for, what I thought was meant to be the Spotifriday night; presuming this to be indieriffic due to TDI’s usual music stylings… no, no it was not. Cheesy 80s and the Best of Jamaican Dancehall 2002 by the sound of it. And, as everyone’s talking about it, how glorious is this weather? Are we sure we’re in October, and we’ve not all experienced some mass ‘Flash Forward’ style event? It’s just glorious.
Speaking of which, I’m off to do a bit more reading of ‘Fingersmith’ in the garden. Hope you’re having a lovely Saturday too.
A Grey Day – The West German Pottery Way
Posted: August 12, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: black, Carstens, dumler and breiden, fat lava, glaze, grey, jasba, Roth, Ruscha, Scheurich, Steuler, vase, west german ceramics, West German Pottery, white 1 Comment »
Bay Keramik 224-20
Despite the title of this post, I’ve actually had two pretty good days, busy but productive. I’m referring to the weather with the title! Rain, drizzle, precipitation… whatever you want to call it; it has rained, rained and rained today. I left early yesterday morning with some gigantic parcels in tow to post before going to a house second viewing (exciting!), but alas! The Post Office was closed due to a power failure in the Glossop Co-op which is where it’s situated. Having lugged the parcels that far, they then had to come to the house viewing with me, causing eyebrows to be raised. Following that, they had to be taken back home due to a lack of power still… my arms were certainly aching by the time they finally got posted later yesterday afternoon. Today, it’s yet another grey, overcast day…
Anyway, because of the manky weather, I thought I’d do a grey, black and white themed pottery post. And also because it’s one of the few combinations of colours that I’ve not featured yet.
It’s quite a process to go through all of these and add the names and makers to each picture. We’re leaving for Germany this evening, so if I get chance then I’ll do some more. Otherwise, I’ll have to keep coming back to it! If you happen to know the maker in the meantime, feel free to click the image and leave a comment. Share and share alike, I think!
Glass Works
Posted: August 3, 2011 Filed under: Glass | Tags: bowl, glass, Holmegaard, Murano, retro, Riihimaki, vase, vintage Leave a comment »Our glass collection is still expanding. Despite not knowing much about the field, we keep picking up bits that we like and end up keeping them.
Murano, Riihimaki, Holmegaard, Ingrid Glas… new names I’ve learned over the past few months. I think I can recognise these well enough now; there’s still plenty more to find out though. I particularly like the colours that these companies imbue their pieces with, especially the Murano when combined with the different cuts and facets of the design.
Apologies for my dirty windowsill and the neighbours car – kind of detracts from the glass itself!
Glorious Glazes
Posted: July 21, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 60s, Carstens, Ceramic glaze, colour, fat lava, glaze, Jopeko, pottery, retro, Scheurich, texture, vase, vintage, West German, West German Pottery, West Germany 2 Comments »I’ve just been looking at our vast collection of pots and thinking about how varied the glazes can be. Now, these pots are not necessarily my favourites (though some of them definitely are!) – it was more a case of what was close to hand!
Like I said, not all of these are favourites but they do show the variety and breadth of glazes that can be created. I’m no expert, but some of these look incredibly tricky to produce. Many people in the West German Pottery world can mock Scheurich, but some of the most striking glazes here were produced by that particular factory.
We’ve finally booked our holiday this evening – we’re leaving on Sunday! – so I’m a bit excited by that. If I get time tomorrow, I’m going to scour my Woman’s Own magazines for holiday related pictures, articles and adverts. That depends on if I can get packed in time though. Wish me luck!
Green, green, green…
Posted: July 13, 2011 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Carstens, ceramics, dumler and breiden, fat lava, glaze, green, Jopeko, pottery, Roth, Ruscha, Scheurich, vase, West German Pottery 5 Comments »My favourite colour ever! Yet for some reason, many people don’t like it; particularly in their retro pottery. I love it. So this is a Green Feast of West German pottery, just for me:
I had many grand plans of what I was going to accomplish this evening. Driving lesson went relatively well. It’s my third one so far (not counting the two I had two years ago…); today I managed hill starts, emergency stops, drove to Buxton, parallel parking, turning, up to fourth gear and back down again. However, I was feeling quite tired and stalled a few times which made me cross. I kept forgetting to put it back into first when I’d come to a stop. Anyway, the short story is: I’m tired. So the run and marking of year 7 assessments is not going to happen. What will now happen is a bath and some Heroes in bed. Ah, but first I have to actually make the bed… I know it’s early and I really don’t care! Night all…
Dümler & Breiden: Polar Pottery
Posted: June 12, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: ceramics, dumler and breiden, glaze, pottery, retro, vase, vintage, West German Pottery 3 Comments »Third (more like twenty-third) time lucky for this post today. I appear to be experiencing technical difficulties with WordPress today. If you hear a high-pitched yelp followed by a loud crunching noise in approximately ten minutes’ time, that’s the sound of me booting my computer out of the window in a rage!
Ahem… after that small digression… bring on the pottery! You can imagine Anton de Beke saying that in a ‘Bring on the Wall’ stylee if you like. Please don’t attempt to jump through this lot of pots as they happen to be two of my favourites:
Dümler & Breiden Polar Glaze
Whilst the smaller one had already been unpacked, Aidan popped the big one out of Wanda the SuperBeastVanCar at about half ten at night; after we’d spend the entire day unpacking and identifying pottery from his latest trip. Needless to say, I was a bit excited by this one (I’m easily pleased) and it revived our flagging spirits no end.
Dümler & Breiden Relief 24/22
I love the glaze on these. The blue colour where the green and white meet is exquisite. They’re so big too. Dümler & Breiden make some of the most ostentatious vases, in my opinion. Some of our craziest pieces of West German pottery are by them. Whilst the glazes may not be as ‘Fat Lava’ as many new collectors would like, they’re both such striking pieces of pottery.
Dümler & Breiden Relief 22/36
This one is currently living on the hearth in front of the fire. It can’t really stay there, but there’s nowhere else for it to go. The house is bursting at the seams at the moment and Aidan heads off again on Tuesday to Germany for another pot-buying expedition. It’s madness!
60s Spage Age West German Pottery
Posted: May 21, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: 60s, Carstens, fat lava, glaze, heinz siery, Luxus range, pottery, retro, Space Age, UFO, vase, vintage, West German Pottery 2 Comments »We’ve been experiencing internet issues here. On Wednesday, a mysterious BT engineer appeared, fiddled around with the telephone mast and disappeared. Internet and phone went down. Thursday, he reappeared, told Aidan that all of the lines had been swapped over on the street and everyone was receiving their neighbour’s calls.
Now as we’re not with BT, but with the fairly elusive Bulldog/Pipex/TalkTalk/whoever, we’ve had to ring them to try and sort it out. The internet comes on after a while but we’ve still not got any telephone. It’s a bit odd.
Anyway, internet appears to be working today, so on with the blogging!
Carstens 1253
One of my favourite West German Pottery makers is Carstens. I’m a massive fan of their Ankara glaze and I really love this range of pots they did. This is our third form in the range.
There’s something really 60s and Space Age about these shapes. Obviously, the designers were inspired by a whole variety of things; the Space Race of the Mid Century would have been an obvious influence.
They do look very 60s in shape and the crusty band around the middle is reminiscent of rock, perhaps reflecting the trips to the Moon?
Thanks to Kevin Graham (@Spritzdekor), I now know a bit more about these. They were designed by Heinz Siery to be part of the Carstens Luxus range, released in 1967. Kevin has referred to them as UFO vases – so I wasn’t too far off with my Space Age evaluation!
I can feel that today is going to be a day of many blogs prepared, just in case the internet goes off!
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Funny Friday: Otto and Sgrafo
Posted: May 13, 2011 Filed under: West German Pottery | Tags: 60s, 70s, bird, copper, fat lava, glaze, Otto Keramik, pot, retro, sgrafo, vase, vintage, West German Pottery Leave a comment »As seems to be the case, the West German pottery that we decide to keep often gets blogged about last. Because some of the stuff we sell shifts so quickly, I often write about it before it’s disappeared from my memory. Unfortunately (for my little blog), Aidan’s managed to shift so many of the pots already this time. It feels like the house is bare! Comparatively speaking, of course…
Here are some of the pieces we’re keeping this time:
Otto Keramik
This Otto pot is possibly one of the most unusual pieces of West German pottery we own: it looks like it’s made of metal, with thin lines of green-copper ‘cracks’ running through it.
Otto do make some lovely pottery. They always seem to have either a unique glaze, shape or colour to them. Some of our best pieces have come from this factory.
We seemed to find some altogether peculiar items this time. Though none perhaps as odd as this…
Sgrafo
We bought this from a couple of women on a flea market who were rather bemused with our purchase! It’s certainly one of the more unusual pieces of West German pottery we’ve got. I think it’ll be staying with us for a while longer yet as it’s quite cheery looking in the bedroom.
This is the first Sgrafo piece we’ve ever come across. Honestly, having looked on the Pottery and Glass forum, I think it’ll be the only one we have. Can’t say I’ve been too keen on others I’ve seen on there…
Thank God it’s Friday! Hope everyone who’s had a tough week has the weekend they deserve. I’m already drinking a beer…
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Glass Bits and Bobs
Posted: May 7, 2011 Filed under: Glass | Tags: 60s, Bottle, glass, Glass bottle, Holmegaard, retro, scandinavian glass, Space Age, vase, vintage Leave a comment »Cheeky, cute, little… everything about these vases is dinky and delicate. You want to hold them in your hand and almost pet them:
No idea who made them or where they came from. But I do know that I like the way they look together and sit on my shelf in the bedroom.
We’ve also got another of these Holmegaard glass bottles:
Holemgaard Bottle Vase
Exceedingly quick post today, I’m afraid. The dreaded OFSTED are coming in Monday and Tuesday so my weekend will be given over to work. We did take a little bit of time out this morning to go and buy a new car. More news on that soon! Let’s just say, Tina’s replacement is big, bold and bright red…
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Scandinavian Glass
Posted: May 2, 2011 Filed under: Glass | Tags: design, Finland, glass, Kevin Graham, mid century, retro, riihimaen, Riihimaki, Ruda Glasbruk, scandinavian glass, Sweden, vase, vintage 1 Comment »Yesterday, I posted up a few pictures of our fledgling glass collection. The wonderful folks over at the Pottery and Glass forum have identified a few of them for me.
Vase 1462
Designer: Tamara Aladin
For: Riihimäen Lasi, Finland
This was identified by Sticknobills at the forum – seemingly a real font of knowledge on the Finnish glass.
I was also sent this link by Michajoli (at the forum) to explore even more of the designer’s work – and to see another example of mine in a different colour.
These were finally identified by Mark Hill, after Kevin Graham sent him a message containing the link to them. Mark says:
“Personally, I think these are from Sweden’s Ruda Glasbruk, and were probably designed by Göte Augustsson. The colour is known as Kobolt, and (if I’m right) they’re from a large range of mould blown and hand finished (the rim etc) textured vases, jugs and tankards. I wrote a ‘Closer Look’ feature on a different vase in the range in the current edition of the Miller’s Collectables Price Guide & Handbook, if you want more information!”
I love finding out more and more about our pieces, so now I’ve got two new areas to research and learn about. Huge thanks as always to everyone who helped to identify these.
Today is the last day before back to school… fortunately, this half term is only three weeks and four days long. Unfortunately, it means I have to do some work today for my real job… I’m sure I can find the time to research pottery and glass instead at some point!
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