Stein Collectors International

~The George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art~
Toronto, Canada

by Beatrix M. Adler


This is the first of three articles which appeared in Prosit from Dec. 1990 to June 1991.
Links to the other two articles in this series are included at the bottom of this page.


Part 1. A General Presentation

[Note: Part 1 provides an introduction to the Museum, while Parts 2 and 3 focus on early porcelain steins in the collection.]

In the heart of the cultural area of Toronto, next to the gorgeous Royal Ontario Museum, you will find the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art.

You have to look carefully before you can find it, because the outside doesn't give a hint of what you will see inside. Although the building seems small and has a simple facade, the showrooms inside display a lot of treasures, surpassing all expectations. The ceramic collection of George and Helen Gardiner was made available to the public in 1984; the owners wanted "to share with Canadians, friends and people from all over the world one of our great loves - our ceramic collection" (ref. 1).

A new building was designed for this purpose by architect Keith Wagland: this process had greater advantages and more possibilities than using an already existing or even historical building. As soon as you enter the museum, you realize that it was built especially to display this collection of ceramics and that all experiences of "museology" have been observed. The result is a perfect museum!

The way the different types of items are shown is really fascinating; this is my very personal feeling and I am sure that every visitor to the Museum will understand me. I saw wonderful cabinets and showcases that looked like shrines for precious jewels: Lined with velvet of different colors exactly corresponding to the type of item displayed. The descriptive labels are excellent, very informative, exact, abundant and discrete. The result is a work of art to emphasize many smaller works of art.

The efforts necessary to get a complete collection of silver, paintings, glass, ceramics, or whatever you collect, are certainly known to our readers, who are collectors themselves. Sooner or later one reaches a point where a decision has to be made concerning the direction in which the collection is to be continued and increased.

George and Helen Gardiner did not attempt to tell the long and complex development of ceramics throughout the world in its entirety. When they had to make up their mind, they decided to concentrate their collection on certain time periods and particular materials, even on specific geographical areas.

If a collection is divided between two floors of a museum, it doesn't automatically mean that you will be viewing two separate portions of the collection; but in this museum it is indeed so. The division into the two parts matches the ceramic classifications of "pottery" and "porcelain." Pottery is a generic term for all ceramic wares without exception, but generally it is used for all wares that are not porcelain.

[Editor's note: we are attempting to obtain better illustrations for these articles.]
Fig. 1 - Some examples of 16th century  Italian majolica. The plate in the upper row on the right side is tin-glazed earthenware, Venice, ca. 1550. It shows the "Metamorphosis of Daphne":To protect her against the god Apollo, she was transformed into a tree.
Fig. 2 - On the left, Boettger porcelain, 1710-1719; on the right, Meissen porcelain, starting in 1719.
Fig. 3 - Porcelain of the French factory at Sèvres: The set in the center is called "China-Vases." Hard-paste porcelain, Sèvres, ca. 1780.
Fig. 4 - Covered milk pitcher with mythological scene. Hard-paste porcelain, German, Ottweiler, about 1763-68.
Fig. 5 - "Commedia dell'Arte" figurines. Hard-paste porcelain from Meissen, Vienna, Ludwigsburg, Höchst, and others, 18th and 19th centuries.
Fig. 6 - Additional hard-paste porcelain "Commedia Dell'Arte" figurines, 18th and 19th centuries.
The main floor displays different pottery products, i.e., earthenware, faience, terra-cotta and stoneware. This section covers by far the widest span of time and space: From about 3000 B.C. until the early 16th century, and from pre-Columbian pottery, meso-American and the intermediate area, from the central Andes (north, central and south coast) to Italian majolica, English Delft- and slipware.

The first European country represented in pottery is Italy. The oldest items date back to the 13th century, but the main part of the Gardiner collection covers the 15th and 16th centuries with the famous ceramics called majolica (fig. 1).

England is also represented with majolica, but called Delftware in the middle of the 18th century, because there was a big resemblance to the tin-glazed earthenware items made in the Dutch city of Delft. In contrast to the colorful but strictly decorative items from Italy, the English majolica or Delftware was put to daily use.

In the history of ceramics, the 18th century meant the beginning of a new era. The upper floor of the Museum is dedicated entirely to European porcelain.

The first European hard-paste porcelain was made in 1710 by Johann Friedrich Boettger in Meissen, after much experimentation to discover the secret of oriental porcelain, known to the Chinese people since the 7th or 8th centuries A.D. Even though the ruling royalty of Meissen tried to guard this great secret, it passed rapidly to other ceramic centers. A factory started in Venice, Italy; the Dutchman Du Paquier set up competition in Vienna, Austria; and after a period of only a few years, porcelain was being produced throughout Europe.

The Gardiner collection presents items from the various factories of the 18th and 19th centuries. Besides the well-known factories, the visitor also finds the names of smaller ones that produced the "white gold."

Meissen, Germany (fig. 2) and Sèvres, France (fig. 3), are the most famous factory cities which have their wares on display, but there is also Vienna, as represented by the Du Paquier factory. France is represented by Vincennes, Saint-Cloud, Chantilly and Memmecy. English examples come from Chelsea, the "Girl-in-a-Swing" factory, Lund's Bristol, Worcester, Plymouth, Bristol, Derby, Pinxton and Mansfield.

German factories are Berlin, Frankenthal, Fulda, Fürstenberg, Höchst, Kelsterbach, Nymphenburg and Ludwigsburg, as well as Otweiler: Ottweiler has been relatively unknown for a long time, and I was surprised to see a milk pitcher (fig. 4) from this factory, especially since Ottweiler porcelain is so very exceptional. The city is located in the Saar area, originally in the county of Saarbrücken. The factory was founded in 1764 by Earl Wilhelm Heinrich, but production ceased after 30 years.

I was impressed not only by the large number of Meissen porcelain pieces, but also by their quality: Very precious treasures in their individual shrines. Another surprise was the number and variety, as well as the display, of the "Commecia dell'Arte" figurines (fig. 5a and 5b), mostly 18th century, from a number of different German, French, English and Italian factories: Meissen, Vienna, Sèvres, Saint-Cloud, Chantilly, Chelsea, Worcester, Derby and Venice.

Though I would certainly like to do so, I cannot present the entire collection to our readers, not even the most beautiful ceramics of each department. The Museum does have a very good 72-page catalog, with many color prints, several in large format, at a very reasonable price.

In further articles in this series, Ms. Adler will describe the porcelain steins displayed on the upper floor of the Museum; Part 2 covering the steins and tankards of the Meissen factory, and Part 3 dealing with those from Vienna and Ludwigsburg.
References (reference are numbered sequentially through all three articles):
  1. "Treasures of the George R. Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art," catalog prepared by J. Palmer and M. Chilton, 1984, p. 7.

Continue your reading by following either of these links:
Link to Part 2       Link to Part 3

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