Stein Collectors International
Featured Stein: January 2000
This article is a "two-fer": two articles which are so closely related that they have been combined into one. The first part, titled "The Babies Stein," examines a stein made by the firm of Reinhold Hanke ca. 1900. In Part II we learn about "The Story Behind the Babies Stein." The inspiration for the Baby Stein was provided by Georg Schöbel's oil painting (below) which is signed and dated (18)98 in the lower right corner. The painting was sold by Bonham's of London in 2010 for £2,400 (approximately $3,879). Click the image to enlarge.
~ The Babies Stein ~ by Ginger Gehres |
The folklore and
culture of
many
countries refer to the stork as delivering babies to expectant mothers
and
fathers, but where did this story come from?
The stork is the official bird of Lithuania and it is also seen as a
good luck
symbol throughout Europe. Storks treat their own young with caring and
kindness,
and many tales have been written about the wisdom of these birds. Even
Hans
Christian Andersen wrote about a stork delivering a fairy princess out
of a
swamp. And what about the Vlasic pickle stork? He delivers, too!
Maybe then, that's the reason for the story on this stein. The stork
is
reading a letter from the nervous and expectant parents-to-be. The
floor is
littered with other letters, each filled with the wishes of the anxious
new
parents - a boy or a girl, and perhaps some special talents or future
for their
child. The stork must choose each baby wisely and deliver that
"special" one to each waiting household.
Take a look at these little
"bundles of joy", each waiting to be matched up with just the right
parents to appreciate his or her special gifts...
Stein Translation: The
stork's
sample warehouse.
A King or Ruler |
An Artist |
A Soldier? |
A Jailor or Watchman? |
A Scholar perhaps and a female with a bag full of money? What do you suppose they are doing with those bottles? |
A Thief and a Merchant or Judge? The first is grabbing for another baby's bag of money and the second has scales and law books. |
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Soldier brave, sailor true, Rhyme Learned lawyer, squire so hale, Army, Navy, Medicine, Law,
|
Rich
Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief, -American Version A
laird, a lord -Scottish Version Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. -Old English Version |
|
Which baby would you
choose?
Aren't you glad you're not a stork?
Henry Burgwyn, member of SCI and the Carolina
Steiners,
provided this stein for photographs which were taken by the author,
who also performed scanning and graphics.
~ 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.