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IDENTIFYING FAIENCE No Mark 17161728 PEWTER WORK: STEINS – PART 9 BK 17281744 Knoller As mentioned earlier, the base of the stein By William Hamer usually has a pewter foot ring that goes BFS 17451747 Frankel & Schreck around the flare at the base of the stein. BAYREUTH (17161788) These foot rings usually remain attached to BPF 17471760 Pfeiffer & Frankel the stein due to the flared base, which they wrap around. Sometime you will find a BP 17611767 Pfeiffer Bayreuth is located in the upper plains re Bayreuth stein with a full pewter base. Un gion, which also includes the faience facto like other South German faience factories BP 17671788 Pfeiffer heirs ries of Amberg, Ansbach, Sulzbach, and which usually have just a pewter lid, most Nurnberg. There were several owners of Bayreuth steins will have both a pewter lid Figures 3 – 6 shows these four different fac this factory and you will find a listing of and lid ring (like you will find on North Ger tory marks. these owners under the marks section later man faience), as shown in Figure 1. in this article. There are two good books on Bayreuth faience: Bayreuther Fayencen by STEIN HANDLE: Albrecht Miller and Alfred Ziffer and figure 3 figure 4 Bayreuther Fayencen Sammlung Figure 2 shows a typical handle on a Burkhardt. While both of these books are in Bayreuth stein. It is wide and flat like a German they have many colored photo thick belt, tapered from top to bottom, and graphs to look at. has a rounded or slightly pointed end at the lower handle attachment. At one time I STEIN BODY: thought that this handle was unique to Bayreuth, but after visiting Les Paul and The stein body is typical South German figure 5 seeing his faience pieces I learned other style with a straight side to the body with wise. Amberg faience has a very similar NO indentation at the top and with a flare handle design and you cannot tell the dif at the base of the stein where a foot ring is ference between the two faience factories. usually attached. Figure 1 shows a typical Bayreuth stein. figure 6
figure 1
figure 7
figure 2
MARKS:
Many Bayreuth steins will be found with fac tory marks. These marks are specific to the particular owner of the factory and not only DECORATION: do they identify the stein as being produced in Bayreuth but can also date the stein to On many steins both sides are decorated the owners period. These factory marks are with sponge painted trees regardless of shown in the following list along with the what the subject matter is of the front owners and their time period. scene. The tree leaves look like they are applied with a sponge and are either 3 or 4 Prosit, December 2013 Page 27
to identify Bayreuth faience is the clouds that appear on either side at the top of the front scene. They are usually a dot or a cir figure 8 cle with two half circles under the dot/circle. Figure 9 shows an example and is the left side of the stein shown in Figure 1. You will figure 12 note that you can also see this in Figure 8.
figure 10
Finally, during the Knoller period, Bayreuth sections high. Figure 7 and Figure 8 shows produced what is commonly called their two examples. Figure 8 is the right side of brown ware. These pieces were produced the stein shown in Figure 1. This side dec using red clay with a lead glaze, giving the oration also appears on the side of many pieces a rich reddish brown appearance. Amberg faience pieces, adding to the diffi The bottom of a stein is shown in Figure 10, culty in telling these two factories apart which shows the red clay. The handle of when the stein is not marked on the bottom these steins is thin and rectangular and with a factory mark. being the same width from top to bottom. Figure 11 shows a side view of the handle. A second decoration technique that helps This particular stein is undecorated. Usu ally the brown ware pieces are decorated in silver or gold leaf. Since this decoration is not fired on, the silver or gold is often found to be worn. Figure 12 shows an ex ample of a gold decorated stein. At the end figure 11 of this article are several more examples of Bayreuth faience steins.
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