Rococo-Style Soup Tureen
Unidentified Maker
Germany, ca. 18th century or ca. early 20th century
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Justin H. Adler, 1991.DA.10.106a,b
A tureen is a deep, covered serving dish, usually intended for broths, soups, and stews. Typically set atop a matching tray, this example probably became separated from its mate sometime during its history, and today the Dixon owns only the bowl and its lid. Nevertheless, the dish is an attractive example, with substantial handles, a pierced foot, and an impressive finial in the shape of an ancient vase. The tureen’s surface decoration features patterns typical of the European Rococo period including shell-shaped cartouches and expressive molded gadrooning (a form of embellishment comprised of a series of repeated convex and/or concave curves or flutes, found also on other objects in the Adler Pewter Collection such as a Repoussé Spire Flagon, 1991.DA.10.75, and Johann D. Kallenberg II’s Covered Dish, 1991.DA.10.69).
Altogether, the visual evidence makes it clear that the Rococo-style tureen is a notable example of fine, 18th century German pewter tableware.
Or is it?
In the 1990s, Jan Gadd, a pewter connoisseur and historian, investigated a series of tureens identical to the one now in the Dixon collection. Labeling the object “The Best Loved Pewter Tureen in the World,” Gadd brought a skeptical eye to these objects. Observing that similar tureens had been published in more than twenty books on old pewter, he also realized that the published versions had “a bewildering number of marks... by a large number of different pewterers. They range from Strasbourg, Zürich, Leoben, Dortmund, Frankfurt and also from Mainz and something is obviously wrong here!”1
1 Jan A. Gadd, Letter to Dr. W. Zaal, February 17, 1995, in “The Best Loved Pewter Tureen in the World,” unpublished (?) documentation and correspondence, Nederlandse Tin Vereniging online archive, accessed June 25, 2026, https://nederlandsetinvereniging.nl/literatuurlijst/the-best-loved-pewter-tureen-in-the-world/. For more information on Gadd, see The Pewter Collector’s Club of America, Inc., “Necrology, Jan Gadd,” The Bulletin 15, no.4 (Winter 2015), p. 46, Nederlandse Tin Vereniging online archive, accessed June 25, 2026, https://www.nederlandsetinvereniging.nl/wp-content/uploads/101-200/0142/0142_PCCA_bulletin_151_2015_Vol_15_nr_4.pdf. Copies of both publications in Dixon object file.
Gadd noted that some of the tureens owned by German museums seem to have been made in the 18th century by a pewtersmith named Sebastian Faerber from Mainz.2 Faerber may have been the maker of an original brass mold from which this style of tureen was cast, and a few examples include Faerber’s specific touchmark, linking these versions to his workshop.
2 Gadd, “The Best Loved Pewter Tureen in the World.”
However, Gadd’s investigation turned on published studies from the 1980s that uncovered a connection between the tureen and the Weygang pewter firm in the German town of Öhringen, Baden-Württemberg. The business was founded by August Karl Weygang (1859 – 1946), one in a long line of master pewterers. In the early twentieth century, the Weygang company began to make and sell reproduction pewter wares. It is possible that the company owned old, original molds (such as those probably made by Faerber) and also original touch marks from different makers operating in different cities. Weygang’s high-quality reproductions are therefore very difficult to distinguish from older examples.3
3Ron Fox, “The Pewter Factory of August Weygang,” Prosit!, December 2003, pp. 1534-1535. See also “August Karl Weygang,” Steinmarks, accessed June 25, 2026, www.steinmarks.co.uk/page?id=978. Jan Gadd, “Of Repros, Fakes, and Forgeries,” Nederlandse Tin Vereniging online archive, accessed June 25, 2026, https://nederlandsetinvereniging.nl/literatuurlijst/of-repros-fakes-and-forgeries/. Copy in Dixon object file.
Weygang catalogues include a rococo-style tureen very similar to the version owned by the Dixon. Model number 681, Plate 8 in a ca. 1927 catalogue, has the same undulating shape, surface decoration, and finial. Only the foot appears slightly different, seemingly lacking the piercings that the Dixon’s tureen has.
Touchmarks on the bottom of the Dixon’s example also look similar to ones used on some Weygang wares and which were among those called by one of Gadd’s sources “imitation stamps.”4
4 See sources collected by Gadd in “Of Repros, Fakes, and Forgeries.”
Interestingly, model number 966 on Plate 8 looks identical to a second tureen in the Adler Pewter Collection located in the same case, 1991.DA.10.131. The distinctive asymmetry of the placement of the gadrooning, the squat legs, and the finial’s design match the line drawing in the catalogue exactly. And the extremely crisp touch mark is nearly identical to that used on the rococo-style tureen.
At this time, it is very difficult to know precisely what the Dixon owns, although evidence points to two reproduction pewter tureens from the early twentieth century, possibly made by Weygang. Concern with forgeries and fakes in the pewter market drove Gadd’s scholarship. In the Dixon’s case, these objects were lovingly collected by Herta and Dr. Justin Adler and remain important objects in the museum’s pewter collection. Even as possible reproductions, they are now quite old, and their existence sheds light on the continuing interest in and market for pewter objects in a variety of antique styles across time.