Teapot with lid

The brilliant white, smooth, glazed body of the teapot sits on a narrow, oval base. The round form of the body is truncated by two, oval, side planes, each of which is decorated with four dots, two pink and two black, applied with a spray paint technique. The short spout emerges seamlessly from the flat upper plane of the teapot, as does the slanted strap handle to the rear. An oval opening in the upper plane holds the flat lid, which has a recessed grip. Overall, the striking front-to-rear slant of the teapot gives it its streamlined, asymmetrical form.

The design of this teapot draws on contemporary, avant-garde, artistic movements. It was produced in the 1920s in the Haël Workshops for Artistic Ceramics and was directly and virulently attacked by National Socialists on account of its modernist design. In 1935, the National Socialist propaganda newspaper Der Angriff published a photograph of this teapot and other items produced by “Haël,” describing them as objects for “the Chamber of Horrors.”

In 1994, the daughter of Margaret Marks (formerly Heymann-Loebenstein) travelled to Germany to visit Hedwig Bollhagen. Bollhagen was artistic director of the ceramic workshops in Marwitz, following the aryanization of “Haël” ceramics. Marks' daughter was accompanied on her visit by an acquaintance, who acted as her translator. They were shown the objects illustrated in the National Socialist propaganda article of 1935 and these items were ultimately returned to the family. Among them was this lidded teapot, which the heirs of Margaret Marks donated to the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2006.