Object Record

Crab & Jellyfish Cachepot

Painter

Johanne Hänschell

Manufactory

Royal Copenhagen (De Kgl. Porcelænsfabrik)

Year

1907

Material

Underglaze-painted porcelain (Kurant Kunst)

Dimensions

H 21 x D 22 cm

Animal Classification

Marine Invertebrates → Crustaceans
Marine Invertebrates → Jellyfish & Medusae

Geographic Classification

Continental Europe → Denmark

Object Details

Marks & Inscriptions

Royal Copenhagen crown mark and three blue waves on the base. Underglaze script signature and date: “Johanne Hänschell. 1907.” Impressed base numbers.

Provenance

Danish trade; sold via eBay by the Copenhagen-area dealer “made_in_denmark,” July 2020, as a unique piece.

Literature

Dødsfald i Danmark i Aaret 1954. Copenhagen (digitized by Slægtsforskernes Bibliotek), p. 19. The national death index: “Hänschell, Joh. Margr., Malerinde, KS. 22.11.” — the entry that closes her dates and records her profession.

Politiets Registerblade (Copenhagen Police Registers), Københavns Stadsarkiv: Station 2, filmrulle 0005, nr. 1054, and Station 1, filmrulle 0013, nr. 2033, s.v. “Johanne Margrethe Hänschell.” The cards documenting her birth on St. Croix, 7 February 1880, and her Copenhagen addresses.

Ryser, Elliot T. Correspondence with the collection, September 2026. On the Kurant Kunst painters’ unique pieces made for personal use or as gifts, the “Privat” practice, and the non-factory character of the incised base numbers.

Todd, Elliot. Danish Porcelain: 250 Years of Royal Copenhagen and Bing & Grøndahl. 2 vols. The sole published reference to the painter — “Hanschell, J., Kurant Kunst painter of underglaze art ware (1904–31+)” — and the identification of painter number 111.

Authorship & Production

Johanne Hänschell (Kurant Kunst painter, Danish, 1880–1954) for Royal Copenhagen (De Kgl. Porcelænsfabrik), Copenhagen, Denmark.

Commentary

This cachepot belongs to Johanne Hänschell’s earliest documented years at the Royal Porcelain Factory. Painted in 1907 — three years after she entered the Kurant Kunst painting studio — it carries a marine scene of crabs and jellyfish rendered in the factory’s soft underglaze palette: pale blues and greys for water, muted greens for seaweed, and translucent whites for the medusae drifting above the basin.

The vessel is a wide cylindrical cachepot with a gently flared rim and rounded base. Rather than isolating each creature as a decorative medallion, Hänschell treats the entire circumference as a continuous underwater field. Seaweed rises from the lower register; a crab occupies the foreground; jellyfish with spotted bells float in the upper zone. Horizontal brushwork in the background suggests currents and refracted light.

The base preserves the evidence that makes the piece historically significant. The Royal Copenhagen crown mark and three blue waves appear above a full underglaze signature and date in the painter’s hand: “Johanne Hänschell. 1907.” The waves are uncancelled, and no second example of this composition has been traced. On the basis of factory practice and Royal Copenhagen scholarship, the cachepot is most plausibly a personal piece — painted outside catalog production for the artist’s own use or as a gift.

Within the Bestiaire, the work occupies an important position as the sole object by a woman painter at Royal Copenhagen and as a bridge between Danish underglaze naturalism and the archive’s marine invertebrate categories. Crabs and jellyfish share the same aqueous environment, yet each is painted with the observational clarity characteristic of Kurant Kunst.

Image Gallery

Click any tile for fullscreen viewing.

Related Object Records

Crab & Bivalves Wall Platter

Open record