Zeller Keramic Hahn und Henne

Designer	Zeller Keramic
Maker	Zeller Keramic
Marks	Stamp to base "Made in Western Germany" and "Zell am Harmersback Handpainted"
Material	Slip clay
Description	Large bowl with rounded sides tapering to a footring and indented base.  Handpainted Cock and Hen pattern in green and black with clear gloss overglaze.  Closed handled with small hole to underside angled upwards from centre fixing on exterior of bowl.
Condition	Very Good, some circular crazing to interior gloss glaze.
Number	No Number
Production Date	Between 1960-1970
Width at rim	125mm
Width at Base	50mm
Depth	60mm
Length (with handle)	175mm
Weight	250gm
Volume	375ml
Acquisition	Salvos Store Noble Park, Victoria 6th August 2012
Rameking Reference Number	ZEL 001

This ramekin is marked on the back as being made in Western Germany at Zell Am Harmersbach, a small historic picture postcard Black Forest market town in Baden-Wurttemberg Germany.  Zell Am Harmsbach is the home of the Hahn und Henne  (Rooster and Hen) pottery factory. The painting of a cock and hen on the exterior of the bowl is a traditional design of the company.   Fabulously kitsch, in the manner of the modern 1970s vases the Germans also made. 

“Hahn & Henne” is a long produced design dating back to the early 1900s.  Traditionally, the designs are hand painted.  There are over 100 different pieces made with this design.  This ramekin being one of them, but don’t look for it among their current product line, it has long dropped off their list.  This was made pre-unification and is most likely from between 1960 and 1970s because that is the period when this backstamp was in use.  There is a pipkin, or sauciere (No 0010/1-1101) in the pattern range though.

 There was an English pottery in Bristol that also called their pottery “Cock and Hen.”  This was Pountney & Co Ltd  (1905 to 1969) who seem to have produced distinctive black and white or blue and white ware.  There are also examples of very similar bowls and plated from Pountneys.  Just who copied who?  I put my money on Zeller as the original.

Like many long-term makers, they have experienced highs and lows.  Known today as “Zeller Keramic”. With typical German efficiency, we can state with certainty that they opened on the 22^nd of October 1794 when Josef Anton Burger began an earthenware factory.  By the mid 19^th century, almost half their production was porcelain.   The late 19^th and early 20^th Century saw two town fires almost destroy the works, known as the “upper and lower Factories”, just outside the town gates. 

Before Georg Schmeider took over, the company went through three phases of ownership.  Josef and his partners Jacob Lenz, George Schnitzler and David Knoderer operated until 1846, when by then Jacob Lenz was the last man standing.  He shifted some of their production from stoneware to porcelain.  In 1867, the ageing Lenz handed over to the even more ageing Carl Schaaff who very slowly went broke and sold out to Georg Schmeider in 1907. 

By 1925 they employed over 500 people, but Georg Schmider died in 1934.  Heinrich Heiss, Georg’s son-in-law took over, then Heinrich’s son Gunter ran the company later on.  Unlike a lot of German businesses, they operated successfully for a time during the Second-World-War, but had to close for a few years from 1942 because of a shortage of raw materials.  They recommenced in 1946 and eventually closed the old Upper Factory in 1963.

The recession of the late 1980s saw another disaster averted when a real estate company took them over in 1988.  Like Denby in England, the parent company fell over and the pottery was sold off in 1994.  Known as Zeller Keramik Geschwister Hillebrand G.m.b.H, since 1997, the company still continues to operate successfully today.  There is a porcelain museum operating from the old Haiss manor house.