Porzellan und Silberarbeiten von Bord der Kaiseryachten

"Of all the original imperial yacht furnishings, only a few pieces have survived to the present, above all porcelain tableware as well as silver sailing regatta trophies which the Kaiser won with his yachts. On all of this yachts, i.e. the sailing yacht METEOR (I-V) and IDUNA and the steampowered HOHENZOLLERN, Wilhelm II used the same set of porcelain. This tableware was made from 1893 on (the year the HOHENZOLLERN was put into commission) by the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur, Berlin. With its clear, simple forms and sparse, plain decor, this porcelain makes a throroughly modern impression. The regatta prizes were displayed in the built-in glass cabinets in the sailing yacht salons. The preserved pieces include a silver coin tankard, received by the emperor for a victory with the METEOR (I) at the Kiel Regatta Week of 1894, and a silver replica of the antique Portland vase, won with the METEOR (II) in England in 1896. It is a characteristic feature of these regatta prizes that they are adapted from historical prototypes." (author's abstract

Ein Silberbecher und Stapellauf-Feiern der frühen Neuzeit

"The German Maritime Museum is in possession of a silver beaker (Ill. 1) which, according to its inscription, was given by Jacob Tamssen, a merchant and shipowner of Kiel, to the master shipbuilder Hans Jürgen Hinrichsen in 1747 for the construction of the frigate DE JUNGFRAU HELENA LUCIA. More than a century earlier, the kings of England had presented the builders of the leading vessels of their war fleets with comparable silver cups as gifts of honour. In the eighteenth century, master shipbuilders received such rewards even for the completion of third-rate constructions. The cups were used for a form of launching ceremony no longer customary today, an event at which a party of selected guests stood on the vessel as it slipped from the stocks. The king's representative poured wine out of the cup onto the deck and then passed the cup around for all to take a sip. As this was going on, the master shipbuilder was on the stocks, seeing to the ship's smooth launching. When the ceremony was over, he received the cup. In the fourth quarter of the eighteenth century, decisive changes began to take place in this ritual in England. Initially the bottle was thrown onto the deck in such a way that it broke and the wine flowed over the deck. Beginning in 1804, the bottle was thrown against the stem post from the outside. This custom spread rapidly and has remained the usual procedure for ship christenings to the present day. It can only be carried out, however, if the ship slips from the stocks stern first, a method introduced in England for larger-scale vessels as early as the seventeenth century. In contrast, at Dutch and German shipyards the new vessels were launched bow first until well into the nineteenth century (Ills. 2 and 3), and the ceremony, including the round of wine-sipping, was carried out by an exclusive party on board the ship throughout Early Modern Times. The article also discusses the different procedural variations that could take place within this fixed framework." (author's abstract

Schiffsnägel des 19. Jahrhunderts aus havelländischem Akazienholz

"In the 1860s the writer Theodor Fontane described the relatively short-lived production and trade relationship between the German North Sea and the Havelland, a region southwest of Potsdam. The Havelland supplied shipyards on the Lower Eibe, Weser and jade with high-quality acacia-wood spikes for the construction of large wooden sailing ships until ca. 1890, when that type of ship ceased to be built. There is no documentation of this business relationship in any of the towns in which the respective shipyards operated." (author's abstract

Die Aussagen dreier Bartmannskrüge zur Schiffahrt um 1700

The three bellarmines - or Bartmann jugs - of the German Maritime Museum (DSM) provide information about two very different aspects of shipping. On the one hand they reveal the three important directions taken by Dutch activities in the trade of the jugs of Frechen: The location where the first one (Jug 1 from the Amrum Bank) was found points to trade around the North Sea using coastal ships, and the land in which the second (Jug 2 from Bombay) was used for centuries points to the trading activities with South and Southeast Asia engaged in by the big ships of the Dutch East India Company. The guild-mark on the latter also indicates the third focus of Dutch trade in this context: the presence of Dutch river vessels along the Rhine - the lifeline to the centre of jug production activities. The Dutch constituted, as it were, the cork in the bottleneck of the Rhine, so that everything that entered or left that river passed through their hands. Jug 1 was very probably among the cabin items of a coastal barge captain. On the other hand the function and meaning of the relief designs on the jugs have been deciphered for the first time, and thus serve as an additional historical source for evaluation. The point of departure was the favourable circumstance that Jug 3 bears evidence of the person who commissioned it. This person, who is identifiable by name, was a shipmaster also active as a merchant who functioned as a distributor for Frechen jug-makers. The guild-mark of the shipmaster on the first relief pattern denotes the first profession; the other is revealed by the mark of ownership. Similarly, identified abbreviations of names make it clear that the patterns bearing only trade marks and/or municipal coats of arms refer solely to merchants who acted as distributors and were not cargo shipmasters at the same time. In contrast, potters who worked at their own risk, without contractual obligations to a merchant, decorated their jugs with rosettes and without individual names or marks. The three jugs of the DSM thus provide us with unexpected insights into the forms of organisation employed by the people who made them, transported them by ship and traded in them worldwide, and are consequently highly revealing products of a social class that has otherwise left us with very few objects providing such distinctive information about its daily social conditions. That not only applies to Frechen. The example from Stadtlohn clearly demonstrates that relief designs of a similar type also reveal similar economic structures elsewhere

Prestigeobjekte der Fischer, Schiffer und Flößer an oberer Donau und Main im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert

Six faience jugs on display at the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum serve as examples of the importance of privately owned objects bearing guild marks, a topic hitherto ignored by research. Guild marks, especially on drinking vessels, rendered the latter objects of prestige, and reflect a strict system of social rank and representation among the guild masters: In their eyes, the most magnificent items were the faience jugs with their brilliant colours. Only merchants used even more valuable works of goldsmithery or glass goblets for private occasions. If the guild masters worked on the water, they belonged to the same guild in every harbour town on the Main and the Danube, yet distinguished themselves from most other masters in that their work was far more diversified and their voyages of very different lengths. These varied activities of fishing and shipping masters, reflecting different levels of social rank, were represented by different guild marks. Recognized and understood by all at that time, they fell into obscurity when the guilds were dissolved in the mid nineteenth century; here their meaning is rediscovered. The collection at the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum includes not only an example once owned by a member of the highest-ranking group - the shipmen in distant trade - who was also active in rafting and the wood trade, but also jugs once belonging to fishermen operating only within a limited local framework, as well as cargo shipmen only active on short voyages. The jugs also show the expenses the masters were willing to go to for these status symbols, ranging from individually ordered jugs to objects selected from mass-produced series. Wherever possible, the municipal fishermen and shipmen lived on the water front in order to have direct boat access to their property. Originally, authorization to fish was closely associated with these parcels of land. It can be shown that, even before the development of the medieval municipal constitution, fishermen were the subjects of a local landlord who owned the fishing grounds, and were compelled not only to supply him with fish but also to transport goods and people across the water. They also had to build their own boats, maintain them and keep them at the ready. The variety of professional occupations typical of the fishing and shipmen guilds thus predates the formation of those guilds by a long period