Kayserzinn
KAYSERZINN
attrib. Hugo Leven
German, 1874 – 1956
Jug with Faun’s Head, Irises, and Tulips, 1896
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Justin H. Adler, 1991.DA.10.59
The Dixon’s Adler Pewter Collection comprises more than two hundred pieces of European and American pewter made between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Some of the most highly decorated works in the collection were made around 1900 in the decorative style known as Jugendstil (the German equivalent of French Art Nouveau) including twelve pieces of Kayserzinn, a trademarked brand founded by Englebert Kayser and manufactured by the J.P. Kayser firm in Cologne.
The Dixon’s Kayserzinn pewter demonstrates exemplary aspects of Jugendstil design including sinuous, sometimes asymmetrical outlines and shapes, and decorations featuring animals, mythological creatures, plant forms, and nude women, often combined in eclectic ways. Jug with Faun’s Head, Irises, and Tulips, attributed to one of Kayserzinn’s most well-known artists, Hugo Leven (1874 – 1956), is a tour de force of Jugendstil taste.
Beautiful from every angle, the jug features reliefs of a fully-open tulip seemingly blown by the breeze on one side, an elegant iris on the other, and the grinning face of a Greco-Roman faun centered under the spout. The creature’s horns curve around the jug, leading the eye toward the rippling, scalloped edge of the vessel’s mouth and to the strange, angular handle that looks like a bent stick, or the leg of an insect, or perhaps the tail of the half-goat/half-human faun. Additionally, Leven subdivided the pitcher with long lines that sweep vertically from the mouth to the base, imparting yet another decorative element to this already visually exuberant object.
