Confession time: Aidan’s birthday was in February…  Admittedly, he was given these a couple of weeks after the event, but still that is fairly slack of me to only just be posting them up now.  As they were his presents, Aidan has taken the pictures himself:

The Scheurich one is my favourite of the two. I think it looks like a sunset in a desert.

This one cause us some consternation initially, as neither of us could identify it:

The lovely folks at the Pottery and Glass forum managed to identify it us fairly rapidly as a Söndgen.  I’d never even heard of the factory before! Shows there is still so much more for us to learn about these pots – I’m beginning to think it will be a neverending obsession…

Some of the information about the company (sources acknowledged):

• The company was founded in 1893 by Johann Peter Söndgen. It still exists today. (Pottery and Glass forum)
• The company was initially concerned with making salt-glazed stonewares of ‘Westerwälder’ origin. Westerwälder appears to be a mountain range in Germany, so presumably the clay came from somewhere near there. (Translated from Lavaguys)
• In 1949, production in the company changed over to Zierkeramik. Today, they still make modern ceramics of vases and pots. (Translated from Lavaguys)
• Zierkeramik now appears to be combined with Silberdistel.

Looking at the Silberdistel-Zierkeramik website, there are some early influences to be seen on their range of vases:

Does that look a little bit Steuler to anybody else? Well, at least one company is still trading. I genuinely wish that someone still made pots like the ones from the 60s and 70s. I’d be skint if they did, but how much would I love that?! I already dream about rooms filled with pots… that’s a little bit sad, actually. Perhaps I shouldn’t confess these things…!