The Rameking

Worldwide Headquarters of the Australian Studio Art Ramekin, (and a few others) that piece of Australiana that has almost disappeared from our lives and tables. How many of you Baby Boomers have sat in front of a warm fire in winter, eating tinned spaghetti from a ramekin? In the period between the World Wars, and in the decades after, many famous artists made ramekins. They continued until cheap imports and copies almost killed them off in the 1970s. See them here in all their faded glory.

Ramekin is thought to come from a Dutch word for "toast" or the German for "little cream."

Name

Ramekin

Variant

Ramequin, Ramekin dish.

Pronounced

(ram′ə kin)[RAM-ih-kihn]ræməkin

Function

English Noun
Plural

Ramekins

Hypernym

A type of dish

Purpose

Cooking

Etymology

French Ramequin from Low German ramken, diminutive of cream, circa 1706. middle Dutch rammeken (cheese dish) dialect variant of rom (cream), similar to old English ream and German rahm. Ancient French cookbooks refer to ramekins as being garnished fried bread.

Meaning

1. A food mixture, (casserole) specifically a preparation of cheese, especially with breadcrumbs and/or eggs or unsweetened pastry baked on a mould or shell.

2. With a typical volume of 50-250 ml (2-8 oz), it is a small fireproof glass or earthenware individual dish similar in size and shape to a cup, or mould used for cooking or baking and serving sweet or savoury foods.

3. Formerly the name given to toasted cheese; now tarts filled with cream cheese.

4. A young child usually between the ages of 3 months and 11 years exhibiting a compulsion to force or "ram" their head into various objects and structures.

These days, a ramekin is generally regarded as a small single serve heatproof serving bowl used in the preparation or serving of various food dishes, designed to be put into hot ovens and to withstand high temperatures. They were originally made of ceramics but have also been made of glass or porcelain, commonly in a round shape with an angled exterior ridged surface. Ramekins have more lately been standardized to a size with a typical volume of 50-250 ml (2-8 ounce) and are now used for serving a variety of sweet and savoury foods, both entrée and desert.

They are also an attractive addition to the table for serving nuts,dips and other snacks. Because they are designed to hold a serving for just one person, they are usually sold in sets of four, six, or eight. Ramekins now are solid white, round, with a fluted texture covering the outside, and a small lip. Please bear in mind that whatever you ask for them on Internet auction sites, someone is still getting the same thing in an op shop for peanuts.

However, there are hundreds of decorative ramekins that came in a variety of shapes and sizes. They came in countless colours and finishes and many were made by our leading artists and ceramicists. My collection has ramekins with One handle only, fixed to the body at one point only. If it has no handle, it is a bowl. If it has two, it is a casserole dish. But the glory day of the Australian Studio Art ramekin is well and truly over. See some here, ask questions or leave answers.

P.S. Remember, just as real men don't eat quiche, real ramekins don't have lids or two handles. Also remember, two handles makes it a casserole dish. Also, please note If it aint got a handle, it's just a bowl.
P.P.S. To all you cretins who advertise your ramekins by associating them with "Eames" or "Eames Era". Get your hand off it, you are not kidding anyone. The Eames people have told me that they never made ramekins.
P.P.P.s To all the illiterates out there in cyberspace, just as there is no "I" in team, there is no "G" in Ramekin. I am the Rameking, they are ramekins.
If you have a set of Grandma's ramekins at the back of a kitchen cupboard, have a look through the site, maybe you will identify them. Thank-you for looking.
There are many of you out there that have knowledge of Australian pottery. Please let me know if you have anything that I can add to the notes. It is important to get the information recorded. You probably know something that nobody else does.
Please note that while your comments are most welcome, any that contain a link to another site will no longer be published.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Studio Anna

Designer	Karel Jungvirt / Toni Coles
Maker	Studio Anna
Marks	Stamped in black ink to base “Studio Anna Australia”
Material	Glazed slipware
Description	Bowl with tab handle to top rim, with cream glaze to exterior and light coloured contrasting colour to interior. Gloss glaze to entire body. Floral underglazed painted motif to top surface of handle. Unglazed footring.
Condition	Good for age with some chipping to edge of handle.
Number	No number
Production Date	1960s
Width at rim	110mm
Width at Base	70mm
Depth	35mm
Length (with handle)	145mm
Weight	110gm
Volume	250mm
Acquisition	E-Bay 29 May 2013.
Rameking Reference Number	STA 006-007

Designer	Karel Jungvirt
Maker	Studio Anna
Marks	No marks, originally had stickers to interior
Description	Tab handle and plain wide mouth bowl with harlequin colours to some. Sides slightly curved to narrow base. Some crazing consistent with age and glaze pulling away from base near the spur marks.
Number
Production Date	Early 1950s
Width	125mm
Depth	55mm
Length (with handle)	147mm
Weight	200gm
Volume	375ml
Acquisition	Salvo Store Noble Park, Victoria
Rameking Reference Number	STA 001 STA 002 STA 003 STA 004 STA 005 STA 006

Karel Jungvirt, was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia 15^th August 1927 and was a sculptor and artist who had escaped the 1948 Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia, arrived in Australia in late 1951. His pottery career in Australia began in 1952 when he was initially employed as a mould maker with Diana Pottery in Marrickville. He was soon designing and making models there and it was during his stint with Diana that he met Toni Coles, an East Sydney Technical College graduate who had previously been working in commercial advertising, illustrating catalogues.

Coles had started as a ceramic decorator at Diana pottery for what she thought would just be a temporary diversion. But she enjoyed the work so much that she decided to stay on. Jungvirt and Coles were married in 1953 and their partnership also became a business one when Karel set up a small pottery in the basement of their flat in Neutral Bay. Arriving in Australia as an accomplished artist, he had began to design and produce slipcast earthenware in a contemporary style which included popular symbols or scenes of Australia, as well as the appropriation of traditional Aboriginal motifs. His major innovation of the time was to introduce underglaze colours and stains that could be painted transparently like watercolours.

When it came to registering their pottery as a business, local council restrictions meant that they had to find premises in an industrial zone in order to operate. So in April 1954 they moved to Shepherd Street, Marrickville. This was to be the home of Studio Anna until its closure in 1999. During its period of operation the business would expand to include the two adjoining properties. He originally wanted to call his pottery "Anna Studio" but the registration people got it wrong.

From around 1954, orders came to Studio Anna as a result of its displays within the Ceramic Art and Fine Ware Association exhibitions. These were held at Anthony Horderns' Fine Art Gallery in Anthony Horderns' Department Store in Sydney, New South Wales. A major exhibition of Australian ceramics by a number of potteries at Proud's store in Sydney that coincided with the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, also generated healthy sales for Studio Anna.

Following World War 2, Sydney had become a popular holiday destination, particularly for American and European tourists. Karel capitalised on the resulting demand for souvenirs with an Australian theme by creating slipcast decorated earthenware ceramics designed specifically for this market.

Ceramics decorated with local scenes and Aboriginal themes were particularly sought after by both tourists and locals, so adaptations of Aboriginal cave and bark paintings as well as images of Aboriginal people became popular (for Studio Anna and a number of other commercial potteries) throughout the 1950s and 60s. Souvenir shops as such did not exist in Sydney in the 1950s, so Karel approached Swain's Newsagency as a potential stockist for Studio Anna ware. This was a smart move because their extended trading hours allowed to a small number of businesses, (including newsagencies at this time) meant that Studio Anna ceramics would be available to the tourist market when department stores and gift shops were closed. Studio Anna was employing a number of skilled artists at this time as decorators. Several of these artists would also make personal appearances in department stores, demonstrating their decorating skills and generating further interest in Studio Anna ceramics. Toni Jungvirt in particular travelled as far afield as Tasmania and Queensland making well publicised in-store appearances, often over the period of a week. There appear to be no press advertisements for Studio Anna, so these appearances must have been very successful.

At its peak, Studio Anna employed over 30 staff and by 1957 their ceramic ware was not only distributed widely in Australia, but was also being exported to such places as Tahiti, New Zealand, Fiji, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. But 1957 also saw a major blow dealt to Studio Anna and other commercial potteries in Australia in the form of the Australia-Japan Agreement on Commerce negotiated by Australian Trade Minister in the Menzies government, John 'Black Jack' McEwan. This agreement opened the doors for a mass of cheap, but good quality Japanese ceramics to enter the Australian market.

Although many local commercial potteries producing hand-decorated ware, were forced out of business by this competition, Studio Anna's decorating department, with a reduced staff, managed to survive.

In the late 1960s, with public demand for Studio Anna's range of souvenirs increasing, Karel Jungvirt took the step of opening his own souvenir shop, which he named Australiana, in Sydney's newly-built Australia Square. Such was the popularity of this store, which in addition to ceramics also carried craftwork made by an Aboriginal mission station and tea towels designed by Studio Anna artists (along with toy koalas and kangaroos), that eventually a total of five Australiana stores were operating in the Sydney area, including one in the MLC centre.

In addition to its decorative souvenirs, Studio Anna was also catering for the cookware market. Introduced around the early 1960s, possibly as an Australian answer to Corning Ware (which came out in 1958), a range of decorated cookware called Pyro-Ceracraft was developed. Available in a wide selection of designs and described as oven tableware, this range of heat resistant ceramics included casserole dishes, pie dishes and ramekins and was designed to be attractive enough to be brought straight from the oven to the dinner table. As such, matching salt and pepper shakers, table heaters and candle holders also formed part of the range.

With hand decorated ceramics becoming less and less cost effective for Studio Anna, Jungvirt's next innovation was Fiana ware. Appearing in about the mid 1970s, Fiana ware was a range of glazed kitchen storage canisters with matching salt and pepper shakers, cruet sets, jugs and sugar bowls available in such contemporary colours as antique orange, citrus yellow, olive gold and orange red. Instead of hand painted decoration though, decals (transfers) were now used. You can still find them in Op Shops today. Studio Anna's decorating department still continued to operate, only closing in 1982 when Toni Coles left the business.

When kitchenware was no longer in demand and with the introduction of duty free shops taking the tourist market from Australiana stores, Karel decided to diversify once more. Catering to the hotel and serviced apartment market in Sydney, Studio Anna started producing glazed lamp bases, even exporting them to Japan. They also took one-off commissions, which included tiled panels and a jug and decanter set commemorating the centenary of the NSW Government Expedition to Lord Howe Island in 1882.

By the 1980s business had fallen off with only lampbases, kitchenware and hotelware were being produced. By the 1990s Studio Anna was working with a small staff, making mainly lamp-bases for hotels, and working on commission only. In 1999 after many years of illness, during which time he still managed to run the business,the lamp base business and the factory at Marrickville were sold. In 1999 Karel returned to Czechoslovakia, and was given a farewell reception by the Marrickville Council in May. Dorothy Johnston is writing a history of NSW commercial potteries and has interviewed Jungvirt extensively. (Note: published articles vary in the spelling of his name, and in the dates when the pottery started.

Most of the records date from the 1950s and 1960s, but the pottery operated from 1992 in Neutral Bay and from 1954 at Shepherd St, Marrickville.

Karel died in Dubne Czechoslovakia the following year.

Studio Anna was representative of a large number of small commercial potteries making domestic, ornamental and souvenir wares, others being Pate's Potteries, Martin Boyd Pottery, Modern Ceramic Products and Diana Pottery. At the height of its success in the late 1950s, Studio Anna employed many decorators and pottery workers and had an enormous output. The staff was as large as 35 at one stage. They also made souvenirs for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. Karel was a good promoter of his wares, and operated a number of 'Australiana' shops in Sydney. Decorators included his first wife Toni.

He was also a member of the Ceramic Art and Fineware Association. This organisation of commercial potteries contributed to a number of exhibitions in Cannes in the 1950s, the Cannes International Exhibitions of Modern Ceramics, with a number of works selected by judges including Mr Penfold, the director of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.

References
This history was copied from the Powerhouse Museum website and was compiled by them with reference to information contained in the Studio Anna archives and The People's Potteries: Stories of the art potteries of Sydney - post World War II by Dorothy Johnston, Sydney, 2002.

The archive from the Studio Anna pottery (1952-1999), and selected collection of ceramics, are from perhaps the longest operating of the dozens of small commercial potteries set up in Sydney in the 1950s. They form an important record of this period and phenomenon.

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Origin of the Australian Art Studio Ramekin

In the 19th Century, Ramequin Cases began to be used in cooking. These were paper cups, similar to those used for cupcakes or muffins. As time passed, people began to make them from clay and the spelling mostly changed from Ramequin to Ramekin. Ramequin still holds out in a few places, mainly in parts of the USA. The heyday of the Australian ramekin began in the 1930s.

Australian Art Studio pottery grew out of the 19th Century Arts and Crafts Movement. Following the upheaval of the First World War, potters found that many people still wanted hand made homewares. In Australia, many potters opened studios to meet this demand which intensified after the Second World War when returned ex services people set up their homes. It is the fallout from this ageing group that is now finding it’s way onto the market. Most of them may never be valuable, it is only their intrinsic value,but after another 100 years, who knows?

The Government, still in austerity mode encouraged manufacture of practical pottery post World War 2, by placing a higher tax on decorative wares, leading to potteriesmaking items that were decorative but had a practical use,thus avoiding the tax. This explains the absence of figurines that were the mainstay of many English potteries, and the proliferation of things like ramekins and vases.

Retraining programmes for returned and wounded soldiers at the end of the First and Second World Wars provided a workforce for the many potteries that flourished in Australia at the time. After the First World War, Bendigo Pottery needed a trained workforce to help make the flood of bricks for the housing in Melbourne. Towards the end of the Second, Guy Boyd worked at the Rehabilitation Hospital at Ingleburn, New South Wales, teaching pottery

Before take away food and plastics came to dominate the market, ceramics were used for a much wider range of products. The population explosion created by the Australian gold rush resulted in an increased demand for all kinds of locally manufactured goods. As the market diversified so too did the pottery, from commercial packaging to utility kitchenware. For the larger pottery’s, domestic items were, however, always a sideline to the main business of serving the building trade. For some, smaller potteries and individual potters, ramekins were the main income producer.

In 1957 the Australia-Japan Agreement on Commerce negotiated by Australian Trade Minister, John 'Black Jack' McEwan dealt a major blow to commercial potteries. This agreement opened the doors for mass- produced cheap Japanese ceramics to flood the Australian market. Many local commercial potteries were forced out of business by this competition, but a few managed to survive.

There are also the untold stories of some Eastern European migrants fleeing persecution who made a new life in post war Australia, thanks largely to ramekins. Because they made homewares and not art sculpture, their stories have not been adequately told. In some cases, this is the only place you will find part of their stories.

To help calculate the relative cost of these ramekins, I have here are a couple of items to compare the average weekly earnings for a man in Australia for the decades during which ramekins were popular; In 1940, it was $9.60, in 1950 it was $11.50. To convert to the old currency, divide by two.

Please Note

Comments on this blog are moderated BEFORE they appear on the site, and this takes time. There is often a delay between a comment being posted and it being approved. If you do not wish to have your comment posted, I will not post it.

The photographs form part of the description. Due to the light, my photos may show slight variances in colour and some shadows, distortions, reflections and highlights that should not be there. Also different computers and monitor settings will affect colours. My ramekins are all washed in warm water with mild detergent as this identifies any crazing or cracks that are very faint, or invisible to the naked eye. This ensures that the descriptions are more accurate.

Modern Ramekins

Ramekins are one of the few baking dishes that actually have their own name, setting them apart from generic sounding “cake pans” and “baking dishes.” Modern ramekins are small, cylindrical dishes that are used for baking individually sized dishes. They are ideal for baking small soufflés, as their straight sides make it easy for an egg white-based souffle mixture to rise up the sides of the dish and gain a lot of height, as well as for baking individual desserts, since they offer built-in portion control. Use them for little pudding cakes and baked egg-cups, and also for chilled desserts, such as panna cotta and chocolate mousse.

Ramekins can be made out of any heat-proof material; most modern ones are often made out of porcelain, pyrex or something similar. They can come in any size, but are most often found in 4-, 6- or 8-ounce volumes. Some will have very shallow sides, but most have a rise of about an inch or so, depending on the size of the dish itself.

Their small size actually makes them useful for applications outside of the oven. For instance, they’re often used when a cook is doing preparation work in the kitchen, separating chopped ingredients into individual dishes to be used at a later time. They’re also a nice way to present side servings of dressings, sauces and dips.

There are a small number of people who refer to ramekins as “pipkins”. I do not. Yes, there are similarities, but historically, a pipkin is a small earthenware or metal cooking pot used for cooking over direct heat. They had a tripod moulded into the base to stand clear of the fire. Examples of Romano-British pipkins are not uncommon. Late medieval and postmedieval pipkins had a hollow handle in order to insert a stick in it for manipulation. See the “Diana” ramekins for a recent homage to this. Many more recent ones have a spout at a right angle to the handle.

To me a ramekin without a handle is just a bowl or a dish.

It's simple really.

No handle-it's a bowl or a dish

One handle-it's a Ramekin

Two Handles-it's a Casserole dish

Copyright

Most of the images on this site are of my collection as are the comments. Other images and comments on this site are reproduced for the purposes of your information and interest only. I would be grateful for any information concerning Copyright and I will withdraw any items so described immediately on Copyright holder's request.

Please leave any other comments regarding anything on this blog. In the interests of accuracy, I will be pleased to have any information or comments you may have. There are many older people out there that have been involved in the Australian pottery world of the fifties and sixties. Get those arthritic fingers moving and put that knowledge out there. When you go, it goes with you.

Disclaimer

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The facts, figures, reviews, records, statistics, and other data presented on this blog is for suggestion and information purposes only. The Rameking is not responsible for any incorrect or incomplete information. The Rameking does not take responsibility for any user-reviews of websites inside its resource and reserves the right to keep or remove those. It is highly recommended that you review all the data for accuracy.

Name	Ramekin
Variant	Ramequin, Ramekin dish.
Pronounced	(ram′ə kin)[RAM-ih-kihn]ræməkin
Function	English Noun
Plural	Ramekins
Hypernym	A type of dish
Purpose	Cooking
Etymology	French Ramequin from Low German ramken, diminutive of cream, circa 1706. middle Dutch rammeken (cheese dish) dialect variant of rom (cream), similar to old English ream and German rahm. Ancient French cookbooks refer to ramekins as being garnished fried bread.
Meaning	1. A food mixture, (casserole) specifically a preparation of cheese, especially with breadcrumbs and/or eggs or unsweetened pastry baked on a mould or shell. 2. With a typical volume of 50-250 ml (2-8 oz), it is a small fireproof glass or earthenware individual dish similar in size and shape to a cup, or mould used for cooking or baking and serving sweet or savoury foods. 3. Formerly the name given to toasted cheese; now tarts filled with cream cheese. 4. A young child usually between the ages of 3 months and 11 years exhibiting a compulsion to force or "ram" their head into various objects and structures.