Introduction 13 –→ Table of Contents Private collections also proved a valuable source of information for this research. One of the most important collections worldwide is the Blair Museum of Lithophanes (Toledo, Ohio, USA), which was established by the collector Laurel Gotshall Blair (1909–1993). From 1937 to just a few years before his death, he ran the Blair Realty and Investment Company, which was founded in 1908 by his father, Roy Blair. Laurel Blair had a deep passion for collecting various items, ranging from wax carvings and reliefs to his main interest, porcelain lithophanes. As described in one of his “Collectors’ Bulletins,” Blair purchased his first lithophane on December 27, 1961, in New York City.3 By 1963, he had already collected approximately 600 pieces. In 1965, after purchasing a complete collection of around 1,500 lithophanes from the dentist Dr. Edmund Beroud, Blair opened a museum in his own home. By the final years of his life, the collection had grown to such an extent that it had become almost impossible to manage. Several attempts were made to sell the collection, even in Germany, but no buyer was found.4 A few years after his death, the collection was donated to the City of Toledo. The Blair Museum of Lithophanes is now housed in its own building at the Toledo Botanical Garden. With few exceptions, the first porcelain factories in Europe were founded by monarchs and aristocrats as a sign of prestige. These factories were not profit oriented. Instead, their main aim was to supply the respective aristocratic family with the porcelain it required or to produce valuable gifts of state. Over time, the continuous subsidies required to run the factories overtaxed the financial resources of the founders. As a result, many of these companies were privatized early on. With the dawning emancipation of the middle class and the cessation of state subsidies, porcelain factories were forced to adapt to the needs of a broad sector of the population. In the search for profitable products, the lithophane was invented in the first third of the 19th century. However, lithophanes were very costly to produce and, in the early days, more of a luxury ware. Therefore, these new products often only played a minor, and in many cases even temporary, role in the overall business plan. Many porcelain factories did not survive the economic changes. These either halted production entirely or merged into other companies. This book describes the developmental stages of the individual factories, starting from their date of establishment. With this information, it is possible to make comparisons, recognize interrelationships, and gain new insights that can help us understand why, when, where, and how lithophanes came into existence. Detailed descriptions of individual objects are also provided, particularly in cases when historical price lists and/or production documentation are not available or when the object has a special relevance to the text. Factories whose only lithophane products were mugs or beer steins with lithophane bottoms are not covered in this book unless they played an important role in connection with other companies that produced lithophanes. The factories are listed chronologically by year of establishment, not by their economic importance or the artistic quality of their products. Each factory is covered in a separate section with a chronology of important periods and events. In these factory histories, all paragraphs with information relevant to the production of lithophanes are marked with a red square before the respective date. Most of the historical and foreign units of measurement have been converted into their metric equivalents in order to facilitate the comparison of similar objects from different companies. An object’s actual dimensions may differ from the official data owing to variations in the firing process and in the composition of the porcelain bodies used by the manufacturer at different times. Therefore, whenever possible, the objects described in this book were measured by hand, meaning through the central axis in the case of plaques; the respective measurements are always given as height by width. A decision was made not to compare historical production processes and prices with current figures. Lithophane production has experienced a revival since the second half of the 20th century. The products that have attracted interest include not only objects cast from 19th-century molds, e.g. plaques, lamps, and tea warmers from Schierholz Plaue, and plaques from Nymphenburg, but also new works from these and other factories. Fig. 3 Lithoponie Poterie de Rubelles faience plaque with ideal waterside landscape · 26.3 × 17.8 × 0.8 cm (10 3⁄8 × 7 × 5⁄16 in.) · AdT circular mark after 1845 (Collection “S” Wuppertal) –→ Object description p. 426
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