The recipe book of the Herrmann potters from Langnau
A paper on the technique used to create historical 18th century faience glazes and colours
Wolf Matthes, 2017
A 1763 recipe bookhttps://ceramica-ch.ch/wp-content/uploads/BHM-H_7003.pdf, pdf,
The paper examines the recipes for glazes and colours applied to faience vessels and stove tiles from the recipe book of Daniel Herrmann by testing the raw materials and amounts listed in a number of examples to ascertain their effectiveness. At the same time the pottery-technological background is evaluated based on modern standards, and comparisons are made with other contemporaneous recipe books – published and unpublished. They support the notion that Daniel Herrmann (1736–1798) was very knowledgeable and highly skilled indeed. This obviously raises the question of where he acquired this knowledge, though it still remains unanswered. With regard to the characteristics of the products that result from recreating the recipes, (e.g. their melting points, viscosity and transparency, and the quality of the surfaces and thermal expansion values of the glazes and colours once solidified), we can only deduce approximate values, either from experience or from complicated calculations. They could, of course, be reproduced by recreating the recipes using the contemporaneous production methods, but this would require an enormous effort. Experiments with simplified modern production methods have not produced any useful results thus far.
References:
Wolf Matthes, Das Rezeptbüchlein der Hafner Herrmann aus Langnau – Ein Beitrag zur Technik der historischen Fayenceglasuren und –farben des 18. Jahrhunderts, in: Andreas Heege/Andreas Kistler, Keramik aus Langnau, zur Geschichte der bedeutendsten Landhafnerei im Kanton Bern (Schriften der Bernischen Historischen Museums 13.1), Bern 2017, 226-238.
