Bowl in classical shape with inset „Igel“, stoneware, with blue matte glaze, molten.

Design: Margarethe Heymann-Loebenstein, before 1929/30.
Manufacturer: „Haël-Werkstätten für Künstlerische Keramik“, Marwitz near Velten/Brandenburg/Germany, Form 85a, Decor 27,
Stamped: underglazed blue, Haël mark, factory marks for the form and decor: 85a.
Measures: bowl: 2,76 inch (7 cm) high; 8,4 inch (21,3 cm) diameter; inset: diameter 2,6 inch (6,5 cm)
 
_{In good state. Underside a little chip (not to see from above), no discolorations, no scratches, slight tracks of use in the glaze.}

The „Haël-Werkstätten für Künstlerische Keramik“ (translated as: Haël-workshops for artistic ceramics) were founded by Margarethe Heymann-Loebenstein in Marwitz by Velten/Brandenburg in 1923, held to 1933.
The characteristic company logo "Haël" was derived from the initials of the name Heymann-Loebenstein, spoken "H" and "L", with the Trema on the "e".
With the seizure of power by the national socialists Margarethe Heymann-Loebenstein was forced on the sale of her workshops because of her Jewish descent. Her ceramics were classified as degenerate and the workshop became aryanized in 1934. Hedwig Bollhagen took over the manufacture.

Margarethe Heymann-Loebenstein was a student of the Weimar Bauhaus in the first generation, continued her training in the ceramic-workshop at Dornburg, which was leaded by Gerhard Marcks and Max Krehan. For a short time she was employed as a designer at the stoneware manufacture Velten-Vordamm, leaded by Dr. Hermann Harkort.
Within a few years the Haël-Werkstatten grew up in Germany and abroad to a renowned manufacturer. The company was included in the membership of the German Werkbund.
The only one decade producing, the "Haël-Werkstatten" have revitalised the manufacturing of stoneware substantially.
During the time of the Weimar Republic these ceramics mediated in Germany the standards of the Werkbund and the aesthetics of the Bauhaus.

All write-ups to the year of the design are based on the two preserved price books from the years 1923/34 and 1929/30. The here offered bowl with inset „Igel“, was offered in the second catalog and was considered as a popular decorative item of the 1920s.

Margarethe Heymann-Loebenstein impressed especially by glazes, whose intensity and luminosity in the field of stoneware and also porcelain were unrivalled. She could produce various classical forms, industrially in the casting process. The technical quality and formal precision of her thin-walled ceramics were outstanding, in comparison to the products of other companies this time.
Haël ceramics were directed to a modern new life-affirming purchasing public with a sense for quality.


Other objects from “Haël-Werkstätten für Künstlerische Keramik“, Margarethe Heymann-Loebenstein -Marks:
Bowl, faience, before 1929/30,
Teapot, stoneware, Haël norma, 1930,
Bowl, stoneware, before 1929/30,
Teapot, stoneware, Haël norma, 1930,
Vase, stoneware, before 1929/30,
Big vase glazed, stoneware, before 1929/30,
Little vase glazed, stoneware,
Bowl, 1923/24,
Vase, double-pumpkin-form, before 1929/30.

In: Ursula Hudson-Wiedemann, Ofen- und Keramikmuseum: Haël-Keramik - wenig bekannt, bei Sammlern hoch geschätzt, Velten 2009, p.8.
H. Rezepa-Zabel: Haël, in: Sammler Journal, Nov. 2011, p.38-47.