352 Digitized Items in Albums → Old Gmunden Faience

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Old Gmunden Faience

During the period between the museum's foundation and the end of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the museum consistently acquired Gmunden objects. In an era of increasing industrial production, museums collected handcrafted objects in order to save them from disappearing and being forgotten. Every now and then, extensive collections from private individuals would also find their way into the museum’s collection. The majority of today's holdings of around 350 objects had already been catalogued by 1918.

Acquisition activity continued on a smaller scale from then on, with holdings from the period between 1938 and 1945 now being investigated by restitution research. Hardly any major new acquisitions were made after that, apart from some green-flamed bowls from a private collection, which were purchased in 2005.

Krug mit der Darstellung eines Vogels neben einer blauen Blume, datiert 1719, Gmunden, Oberösterreich, ÖMV/23502Volkskundemuseum Wien / Foto: Christa Knott, CC BY 4.0

Thanks to extensive and dedicated collecting efforts over many years, Volkskundemuseum Wien now owns one of the most culturally significant and comprehensive collections of Old Gmunden Faience. In every permanent display, exhibits from Gmunden workshops were displayed for museum visitors and elaborated upon in the guides accompanying the collections (e.g. in 1897 in the text on the group “Aeltere Bauernfayencen aus den Alpenländern” (Old Farmer Faience from Alpine Regions)).

Why in Gmunden?

Suitable clay deposits, an abundance of wood and a direct connection to an important trade route – the waterway over the Traun and Danube Rivers – were ideal preconditions that gave rise to the development of pottery trade in Gmunden. A predominantly Protestant town in the 16th century, Gmunden owes its knowledge of faience production techniques to the persecuted Swiss Anabaptist Brethren who brought their expertise to the area on their way from northern Italy and Switzerland to Moravia and western Hungary. Stylistic influences also came from Holland, where Chinese porcelain was traded, which allowed the trend of chinoiserie to take hold. Over the course of the 18th century, an independent style emerged in terms of form, decoration and colouring, which characterises Old Gmunden Faience.

Faience refers to earthenware that is coated with an opaque base glaze made from a mixture of lead and tin dioxide, an ideal painting base for abstract and figurative decorations. The first surviving objects from the 17th century had dots and patches in brown, green or blue colour on a white ground. This gradually developed into the characteristic loops and stripes applied with a Malhorn (painting horn). The ‘green-flamed’ decoration primarily adorned plain everyday items, which were traded as Gmundnerisches Geschirr (Gmunden tableware) as far away as Vienna. The flaming technique (Flammen) was declared an intangible cultural heritage in 2021. It is still applied today at Gmundner Keramik in various colours.

Due to salt trading and related trading privileges granted by the emperor, burghers and minor nobility settled in the flourishing trading town at Lake Traunsee, making for an influential clientele for figuratively painted, colourful faience. Plates, bottles, jugs and pots, figurines and salt pots, godmother bowls, holy water basins, writing utensils and even grave plaques were produced for decorative and practical purposes. When Gmunden became a spa town in the 19th century, new sources of income emerged for ceramics workshops as they started to produce memorabilia.

There were four workshops in Gmunden in the 17th century and three from the 18th century onwards. Local researcher F.H. König divided production into four colour periods: indifferent, blue, blue-multicoloured and green-multicoloured. Our collections also contain examples of well-known pottery painters such as Georg Asam, Simon Pesendorfer, Franz Föttinger, Josef Sauber and Josef Triesberger (also known as Trischberger). They often worked with engravings, which they decorated with ornaments, especially at the edges. In addition to religious motifs, depictions of nature and the Salzkammergut region with Lake Traunsee, humorous, playful and – by today's standards – crude and sexist scenes are typical of Gmunden.

The end of Old Gmunden Faience

The closure of the Schleiß (Schleiss) workshop in 1903, which had been producing at Esplanade, Seestadtl 1 and 2 (today Theatergasse 14-16) since 1843, marked the end of the Old Gmunden Faience era. In public perception, Gmundner Keramik was and still is the company founded in 1903 by Leopold Schleiß (Schleiss) in Traunleiten, a part of Gmunden. One of its aims at the time was to modernise and artistically reorientate Gmunden Faience tradition, which is still relevant in view of current thematic priorities. Today, the company is called Gmundner Keramik Manufaktur GmbH Co KG and can look back on a truly insightful and eventful history.

Claudia Peschel-Wacha

Curator of the Ceramics, Glass and Stone Collection

5 February 2025