~ The Story Behind the Babies Stein ~

by Ron Gray

The Babies Stein, mold 1276, described by Ginger Gehres in the first part of this article has appeared in numerous stein auction catalogs, although none identified the maker. I have also seen the stein offered multiple times on ebay, but none of them have shown a manufacturer's trademark, only the word "GERMANY" in a straight line. The Beer Stein Library includes this stein in the Reinhold Hanke catalog under the title Stork with Babies. Frank Loevi states that some of these steins do carry the Hanke mark and that the arched "GERMANY" we identify as Hanke came into use later. In the What's New section of The Beer Stein Library, Frank shows a new "tell" for determining Hanke steins. It shows "GERMANY" followed by a period in a sans-serif font. He does not state the source of this attribution.

Not only is there a story behind this stein, there are actually 36 stories, most likely written as poems, in a book authored by Edwin Bormann. The title of the book is "'S Buch von Klabberstorche." Edwin Bormann was born in Leipzig in 1851 and died there in 1912. He was a learned man with a wide range of interests. He was a poet, composer and author. His book’s ranged from children’s books to works on Bacon writing Shakespeare’s plays. Being from Leipzig, his book was written in the Saxonian dialect. This then accounts for the spelling difference between the main title on the book and that on the stein. My copy of the book does not show a publication date, but it is circa 1900, some sources cite earlier dates in the 1890s. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate an English translation of the book. The illustrations look intriguing and two of the stories are about Lohengrin and Julius Caesar. The book must have been quite popular in its day. In the late 1890s an all-female vaudeville act known as the Harrison Sextet incorporated the babies into their promotional materials. I found a Harrison Sextett postcard stamped 1899 that included a picture of Jean Priver, Impresario, their promoter. This led me to a listing in an 1895 Theater Almanac of vaudeville acts, including Priver as promoting The Six Sisters Harrison, thus disproving my initial assumption that they were a circus act due to where I had found their poster.

 

The illustrations in the book were done by George Schöbel, a famous painter from Berlin. To learn more about him, Google “Schöbel-Archiv” and then click on translate. Shown above are the cover of the book, and a poster promoting the Harrison Sextett. Below, the contents (Inhalt) pages showing the 36 stories in the book, and a page headed by a drawing of babies hung on pegs indicating each baby's destiny. In the book the hats, which indicate the baby’s future occupation, are at the top of the rack whereas on the stein and the painting they appear on the babies along with tools of their trade. The book was apparently reprinted several times, as there are a variety of publication dates in the 1890s found on the Internet. Walt Vogdes discovered the painting which is shown at the top of this revised article. It appears that the book was originally published earlier than the painting, from which it seems that the drawing in the book was the conceptual basis for both the painting and the stein.

As Paul Harvey, my favorite radio commentator, would say, "Now we know the rest of the story."