Jegenstorf as seen from the air, 1939, view towards the north-east.
Andreas Heege, Andreas Kistler, Alfred Spycher, 2025
Different spellings of the name Reutlinger are found in the written sources: Rüedlinger, Reütliger, Rütliger, Ryttlinger, Rüttlinger.
Abraham Reutlinger (1673‒1741) was the son of Anthoni Rütliger from Jegenstorf (originally from Mattstetten) and his wife, Madlena Ärni. He was baptised on 4th May 1673 (Bern, Ausburg baptismal register 1665‒1684, 137/7) and died on 26th December 1741 (KR Jegenstorf 33, 22). Abraham Reutlinger served his apprenticeship with the Bernese potter Hans Heinrich Hess from 1689 to 1691 and left there as a journeyman on 11th December 1692 (Morgenthaler 1951, 137. Cf. also Boschetti-Maradi 2006, 176‒178, and 210), probably to commence his period of travel. He seems to have got as far as St. Gallen, where he met Wibrath Sommerauer (1657‒prior to 1721; Staatsarchiv St. Gallen ZVA 12.760), a potter’s daughter. The couple married on 15th October 1694 in St. Gallen (Staatsarchiv St. Gallen ZVA 12.733,236). Her parents were the potter Jakob Sommerauer (1635‒1683, Staatsarchiv St. Gallen ZVA 12.760, 136 and Staatsarchiv St. Gallen ZVA 12.783,2) and Margaretha Gillerin (1632‒1708; married on 24th February 1657, Staatsarchiv St. Gallen ZVA 12.733,196; Sommerauer genealogy in the Staatsarchiv St. Gallen ZVA 12.750.16, Volume Q, 34‒35).
All four children of Abraham and Wibrath were baptised in Herisau, Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden, between 1695 and 1699, and we can probably therefore assume that Abraham had his workshop in Herisau. The family moved back to Jegenstorf a short while later, as Abraham Reutlinger first appears in the bailiff’s accounts for Fraubrunnen in 1700/1701. The records include his fee for repairing the stoves in the mill, in the oil mill and in the trip hammer (StAB VII 1313, 1700). Also in 1700 he worked at Landshut Castle (StAB VII 1553, 1700), and in 1702 at Thorberg Castle (StAB VII 1976, 1702). In 1719 and 1720, Reutlinger repaired tiled stoves at Brandis Castle (StAB VII 1104, 1719–1720). His first wife died some time before 1721, as he remarried on 27th June 1721 (KR Jegenstorf 27, 72; 27/6/1721). His second wife was Elisabeth Fankhauser from Burgdorf (1680‒8th April 1763; KR Münchenbuchsee 14, 26). Both daughters from this marriage were baptised in Jegenstorf. On 16th August 1746, the younger of the two, Anna Catharina Reutlinger, married the potter Johannes Häberli from Münchenbuchsee (KR Jegenstorf 27, 126; 26/8/1746). Her stepsister, Anna Barbara Reutlinger (1699‒1744; KR Jegenstorf 12,16 ; 23/7/1699, baptised in Herisau, Canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden; KR Grafenried 4, 169; 4/10/1744) from Mattstetten, resident of Jegenstorf, had married the potter Hans Rudolf Marti (1691-1742) from Fraubrunnen (KR Grafenried 3, 97; 4/12/1691; KR Grafenried 4, 194; 17/5/1742) on 21st March 1718 (KR Grafenried 4, 5). Therefore, Abraham Reutlinger was the grandfather of the well-known Bernese ceramicist Abraham Marti (1718-1792) (Heege/Frey/Spycher/Kistler 2023).
With the approval of the municipality of Mattstetten, Elisabeth Reutlinger-Fankhauser (1680‒1763) lived with her son-in-law, the potter Johannes Häberli, in Münchenbuchsee from 1753 to 1763 (life estate contracts: StAB, Bez. Fraubrunnen A 274,129 and A 322,49).
From 1700 to 1712, from 1718 to 1721, in 1724 and in 1736, Abraham Reutlinger carried out stove repairs for the Fraubrunnen bailiwick (StAB B VII 1313‒1315). There is also a record of a commission for a new stove for the prebend house in Münchenbuchsee in 1721 (StAB B VII 1136, 1721). In the period between 1721 and 1741, his son-in-law, Hans Rudolf Marti, increasingly carried out the work in Fraubrunnen for him (StAB B VII 1314‒1315).
We do not know where Abraham Reutlinger’s workshop was located or what his pottery or his tiled stoves looked like.
Translation Sandy Haemmerle
References:
Boschetti-Maradi 2006
Adriano Boschetti-Maradi, Gefässkeramik und Hafnerei in der Frühen Neuzeit im Kanton Bern (Schriften des Bernischen Historischen Museums 8), Bern 2006.
Heege/Frey/Spycher/Kistler 2023
Andreas Heege/Jonathan Frey/Alfred Spycher/Andreas Kistler, Keramik aus Blankenburg, Abraham Marti (1718–1792), ein bernischer Landhafner, Bd. 16 (Schriften des Bernischen Historischen Museums), Bern 2023.
