Jean-Baptiste Stahl, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJean-Baptiste Stahl
porcelain artist, Phanolith
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Betschdorf, Grand Est, France
About Jean-Baptiste Stahl
- Jean-Baptiste Stahl (German: Johann Baptist Stahl) (20 June 1869 – 31 January 1932) was the inventor and designer of the Phanolith.
- He was born in Oberbetschdorf, Alsace, in 1869, as the son of Louis Stahl (born 1843) and Anna Maria Braun (born 1841)He grew up in the traditional pottery of his family.
- His studies of ceramics, modelling and sculpture led him to Strasbourg and Höhr-Grenzhausen.
- His detailed, translucent and finely worked porcelain reliefs gained him a gold medal on the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris.
- Partly influenced by Art Nouveau, Jean-Baptiste Stahl took topics from Greek mythology and rural life.
- Usually, the white translucent figures are finely set on a blue or green background that partly shines through.
- Striking is his absolute eye for the detailed modelling of his figures in a very delicate and lively way.
- In order to increase the three-dimensional illusion, he carefully modulated the transparency of the white porcelain.
- On the one hand, parts of the scene and figures with higher translucency, i.e.
- darker tint, were precisely placed to evoke the impression of shadow.
- On the other hand, he used this means in a way to let parts in the background systematically fade out the farer away they should appear.
- The most prominent figures in a scene show the highest fraction of pure white.
- In this way Jean-Baptiste Stahl achieves mastery of the so-called pate sur pate style in that his rather flat reliefs of his mature period demonstrate the three-dimensional illusion most prominently.
- Jean-Baptiste Stahl explored the variation of the translucency of the white porcelain as painters do, who simulate changing lights, shadows, depth and plasticity by varying the brightness of the colours.
- He signed his work either with JStahl or JS.In preparation of his porcelain reliefs he made precise pencil drawings that are partially colorized.
- A fraction of these were rescued post war, from the debris of the Villeroy & Boch factory building, by his grandson Erich Stahl, who was one year old when Jean-Baptiste Stahl died.
- All of Jean-Baptiste Stahl’s work was solely from his lifetime employment at Villeroy & Boch in Mettlach, Saarland, Germany, where he headed the factory's school of drawing.
- Besides himself, his son Hans Stahl (22 November 1898 – 13 January 1978) was employed as a modeller till retirement in 1963.
- As an apprentice, his grandson Erich Stahl (born 24 March 1931) learned the old tradition of copper engraving as a pre-stage for the transfer of a certain kind of decors.
- Out of this craftsmanship he developed his own techniques in a period of over 65 years in the course of his unique work of art.
- Examples of his work can be found at the Albrecht-DĂĽrer-Foundation in NĂĽrnberg.
- With Branko Stahl (born 10 June 1963) the art tradition lives on in the Stahl family in the fourth generation.
Read more at Wikipedia
See Also
- Famous People's Birthdays on 20 June, France
- Famous People's Birthdays in June, France
- Famous People's Birthdays on 20 June, Germany
- Famous People's Birthdays in June, Germany
- Famous sculptor's Birthdays on 20 June, France
- Famous sculptor's Birthdays in June, France
- Famous sculptor's Birthdays on 20 June, Germany
- Famous sculptor's Birthdays in June, Germany