A beautiful, little, fat-bellied bud vase by master ceramicist Wendelin Stahl. This is one in a series of vases, all in different shapes, with a matt metallic anthracite glaze on top of a deep cobalt crystalline glaze. It is signed by the artist and numbered 202/11 (the form designation and the height in centimeters).

WENDELIN STAHL (1922–2000) was an important German studio potter in the last century. He was born in the town of Höhr-Grenzhausen—long a center for the ceramic industry and home to a professional college for ceramics (hence the nickname Kannenbäckerstadt, roughly, “Jug-Baking Town”)—in southwest Germany, in the Westerwald.

The grandson of an ointment jar potter, Stahl apprenticed in his hometown at the pottery workshop of Kunow & Drosein at the end of the ’30s. With his military service complete in 1945, he trained in Höhr-Grenzhausen for another six years at the studio of his elder brother, master potter Rudi Stahl (1918–1987). In 1952, along with his wife and longtime partner, Else Harney (1919–1984)—a trained painter and sculptor and a great ceramicist in her own right—he opened a workshop 60 km to the southwest in Klotten, in the old manor house at Coraidelstein Castle (which his father-in-law, a former director of Deutsche Bank, had purchased in 1917).

Stahl passed his master's examination in 1955. Although some of his brother's forms were echoed in his work, he generally produced smaller and more refined pieces: spherical stoneware and porcelain vessels with narrow necks, turned on the potter's wheel. In addition to subtle shapes, his best pieces stand out among the work of German studio potters for their fine, luminous glazes—in particular, the micro-crystalline and celadon ones. Characterized by a special play of colors and perfect clarity, the latter category reflects the Westerwald appreciation of East Asian stoneware. After Else died in 1984, Wendelin Stahl ran the workshop in Klotten with his former student Ayca Riedinger (1941–2021), until he died in 2000.

DETAILS

Maker – WENDELIN STAHL

Production Period/Year – 1960s

Designer – WENDELIN STAHL

Design Period/Year – 1960s

Origin – WEST GERMANY

Styles/Movements – MID-CENTURY MODERN; MODERN

Materials – CERAMIC

Colors – ROYAL, SILVER, GRAY

Condition – Excellent vintage condition. Minor traces of wear consistent with age and use.

Dimensions – 3 ½" DIAM. × 4 ¼" H