The original Rauenstein factory was founded by the three Greiner brothers in 1783 in Thuringia Germany. Popular sceneries were “blue onion”, sprinkle flowers and “blue bird”. By 1849 all Greiners had died and the shares were acquired by the merchant G. H. Wirth who appointed his son Ernst Wilhelm Georgii to run the factory. At its peak in 1881, the factory was managed by Franklyn Georgii. At his death in 1900, the factory gradually deteriorated and finally closed in 1929. In 1934, after the city had bought the factory land in 1930, it was run by Kahlia. The “blue bird” pattern was produced by Gotthelf Greiner from 1859 to the end of the 19th century.

Presented here is a rare smaller porcelain beer mug with pewter lid, produced by the Rauenstein factory in the 19th century. The beer mug has a cylindrical shape with horizontally extending band-shaped rings in relief. The beer mug does not have a pouring spout, but a tin lid is attached to a C-shaped handle. The C-shaped handle has a pewter lid, the center of which also consists of porcelain with the same decoration as that on the corpus. The beer mug is on a flat base. On a snow-white background, the entire surface is extremely finely hand-painted with an Imari pattern of fine flowers with birds on a branch in underglaze sapphire blue cobalt and overglaze iron red with scarce gilding. This decor is called “Vogel Müster”. At the top of the edge is a frieze of blue diamonds connected by a double curved line pattern. The underside is glazed and in the center we see the mark in underglaze blue of two adjacent keys with the letters “R n.” Underneath. The number “25” is also stamped blind. This tankard can be dated to around the mid-19th century, a period of Rauenstein porcelain that is highly sought after.

Condition: gold somewhat worn, small crack on the bottom central, otherwise perfect.