Zizenhausener Figuren in CERAMICA CH
Roland Blaettler, Andreas Heege 2019
Anton Sohn (1769–1841) settled in Zizenhausen (now a district in the town of Stockach) in 1799. Having served his apprenticeship as a church painter, he gradually began to move in the direction of creating small painted terracotta flatback figures using templates delivered to him by Johann Rudolf Brenner, who ran an art dealership in Basel from 1815 to 1834. An advertisement placed in the “Wöchentlichen Nachrichten aus dem Berichthaus zu Basel” in 1822, offered a series of figures dressed in “traditional Swiss costumes” (HMO 8679; HMO 7191; RMC H1992.2), which may have been made using graphic templates by Joseph Reinhart (1749–1824).
His Basel Danse Macabre “depicted in a series of three-dimensional images” (HMO 8678; HMO 8677) is particularly important. Brenner commissioned Anton Sohn to create the figures from the Danse Macabre to commemorate the famous mural painted in c. 1440 on the graveyard wall of the Basel Predigerkirche church, which had been demolished in 1805, and gave him the copperplate-engraved reproductions created by Matthäus Merian the Elder in 1621 to use as templates.
The other figures that Anton Sohn created dealt with a vast array of topics and even included social satire and political caricatures. They continued to be produced at Zizenhausen until at least the end of the 19th century and were a tremendous success, mainly in Switzerland and southern Germany.
In 2003, the town of Stockach was gifted the estate of the Sohn family. It now has the most complete and abundant collection of figures (540 pieces) and associated moulds (c. 1000) outside of the Historical Museum in Basel and the Museum im Kornhaus in Bad Waldsee.
Digital sources for Zizenhausen figures:
Museum im Kornhaus Bad Waldsee
Translation Sandy Haemmerle
References:
Blaettler/Schnyder 2014
Roland Blaettler/Rudolf Schnyder, CERAMICA CH II: Solothurn (Nationales Inventar der Keramik in den öffentlichen Sammlungen der Schweiz, 1500-1950), Sulgen 2014, 254.
Fraenger 1922
Wilhelm Fraenger, Der Bildermann von Zizenhausen. Erlenbach 1922.
Istas 2004
Yvonne Istas, Terrakotten, Model und noch mehr. Das Erbe der Familie Sohn aus Zizenhausen. Stockach 2004.
Seipel 1984
Wilfried Seipel, Das Weltbild der Zizenhausener Figuren. Konstanz 1984.
