Teapot, teacup with saucer, milk jug

Like so many famous artists, craftsmen and architects of the 20th century, the industrial designer Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1900-1990) received his training at the Bauhaus in Weimar, among other places. From 1931 to 1934 he worked as a freelance designer for the Jena glass factory Schott & Gen. and during this time he designed the tea service with the famous teapot, which is now exhibited in the design departments of numerous museums.

The cooperation between the Jena glass factory Schott & Gen. and the Bauhaus in Weimar began in the first half of the 1920s, in particular with the production of lamps. Since the mid-1920s, household objects were also designed using the heat-resistant borosilicate glass introduced by Schott, first and foremost a coffee machine. Between 1931 and 1934 Wilhelm Wagenfeld then designed an extensive range of glass objects for the household, from plates, baking trays, and casseroles to egg cookers. Many of them were advertised with the slogan “Directly from the fire to the table”.

The tea service was handmade. For the pot the glassblower first made the body of the vessel with the help of a model. He then placed a batch of hot glass, still attached to the blow pipe, on the outside wall of the vessel. By blowing through the pipe, the hot gob was slightly curved outwards, whereupon the glassmaker extended it with pliers – thus creating a tube – and then made the final shape of the spout. The solid handle was attached to the wall in a further step.

For a long time, the tea service was produced according to the design of Wagenfeld. In 1954 Heinrich Löffelhardt, a long-time employee of Wagenfeld, took over the design of the Schott company household glasses, now based in Mainz. The tea service, slightly revised by him, continued to be produced in large numbers. – EB