DOI article:
Muthesius, Stefan: Old English, altdeutsch: some nineteenth-century appropriations of a "homely" past
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14574#0290
278
STEFAN MUTHESIUS
r
16. "Aus der Sammlung Pickert", from the Nuremberg journal "Kunst und Gewerbe", 1881. No. 28. It is not elear
whether this constitutes a bona-fide collection of old objects or a semi-commercial display of interior fittings
Art objects in earlier rooms invariably belonged to the classical répertoire of allégories, usually of
a well-known significance, tied in regular fashion, such as a sculpture in a niche within the ordered overall
Classical design of the room. Now we meet irregularly shaped, picturesque, unusual objects in space.
Altdeutsch seemed characterised by the display of large collections of médiéval or Renaissance body armour,
something, however, that had been fashionable from the early nineteenth century in many countries62, though
in Germany the fashion persisted into the 1890s. It was further related to collecting ail kinds of hunting
paraphernalia. There are then ail the éléments to do with heraldry. Related to this is the seemingly exclusively
German motif of the "Liisterweibchen", a lamp hanging from the ceiling in the shape of a mermaid, carrying
also the arms of a family - a motif that went back to a coloured drawing by Albrecht Durer himself63. In
a somewhat similar category, as a female object, falls the spinning wheel, though, again, this was also
a universal Western item of memory. More on the useful side was the Kachelofen, the ceramic stove, which
now meant a return to the larger versions of this heating instrument, no longer covered in clean white tiles,
but in darkly coloured ones, mostly green or brown; to which an almost infinité number of décorative motifs
could also be applied.
Spécial altdeutsche products can be cited in almost ail materials. The stove was a work of the flourishing
ceramics industry; equally important was the revival of old Rhenish stoneware, "Steingut", again this was
a product valued by international collectors but in this case ail collectors valued it as specifically German.
On furniture, leather upholstery was held to be an "older" materiał than fabric - again an acknowledged
feature of neo-Renaissance furniture in many countries. More specifically Gothic was the love of heavy door
Cf. C. W a i n w r i g h t, op. cit.
3 See note 37.
STEFAN MUTHESIUS
r
16. "Aus der Sammlung Pickert", from the Nuremberg journal "Kunst und Gewerbe", 1881. No. 28. It is not elear
whether this constitutes a bona-fide collection of old objects or a semi-commercial display of interior fittings
Art objects in earlier rooms invariably belonged to the classical répertoire of allégories, usually of
a well-known significance, tied in regular fashion, such as a sculpture in a niche within the ordered overall
Classical design of the room. Now we meet irregularly shaped, picturesque, unusual objects in space.
Altdeutsch seemed characterised by the display of large collections of médiéval or Renaissance body armour,
something, however, that had been fashionable from the early nineteenth century in many countries62, though
in Germany the fashion persisted into the 1890s. It was further related to collecting ail kinds of hunting
paraphernalia. There are then ail the éléments to do with heraldry. Related to this is the seemingly exclusively
German motif of the "Liisterweibchen", a lamp hanging from the ceiling in the shape of a mermaid, carrying
also the arms of a family - a motif that went back to a coloured drawing by Albrecht Durer himself63. In
a somewhat similar category, as a female object, falls the spinning wheel, though, again, this was also
a universal Western item of memory. More on the useful side was the Kachelofen, the ceramic stove, which
now meant a return to the larger versions of this heating instrument, no longer covered in clean white tiles,
but in darkly coloured ones, mostly green or brown; to which an almost infinité number of décorative motifs
could also be applied.
Spécial altdeutsche products can be cited in almost ail materials. The stove was a work of the flourishing
ceramics industry; equally important was the revival of old Rhenish stoneware, "Steingut", again this was
a product valued by international collectors but in this case ail collectors valued it as specifically German.
On furniture, leather upholstery was held to be an "older" materiał than fabric - again an acknowledged
feature of neo-Renaissance furniture in many countries. More specifically Gothic was the love of heavy door
Cf. C. W a i n w r i g h t, op. cit.
3 See note 37.