Women's Portraits

Erna Kunstmann

Mrs Erna Kunstmann herself is surprised to be considered an expert for 18th century tureens.

Education, Occupation, Family

Born in 1937 in Ulm, Erna now lives in her native town since 2010. Here she grew up with two brothers and finished school with the O-level certificate.

The girl found out about her vocation while she was an exchange student in England. One day she accompanied an assistant to an institution for handicapped people. There she watched the effect of an adequate treatment. Erna wanted to work in this line. In Munich she was trained to be a physiotherapist. And in 1959 she attended a Bobath course in London. It is a treatment especially developed for handicapped children, a method to loosen muscles. Erna lived in different European towns. In 1964 she married a lawyer in Hamburg. The young woman continued to work in her beloved job. After the fourth child the mother stayed at home to spend more time with the family.

However, only a few years later Mrs Kunstmann helped her husband in his company in Southern Germany where they had finally settled. There she was in charge of special projects for appretices and the staff. She got responsible for all situations for which the managers had no time. Finally Mrs Kunstmann herself became one of the managers.

At the age of 63 Erna Kunstmann retired. Now she was able to follow her passion collecting baroque tureens.

Unanticipated Passion

It happened 1993, when Mrs Kunstmann visited her niece in Mecklenburg in order to inspect a manor house to be renovated. A momentary picture aroused the interest for beautiful pottery from different periods and of  various materials, such as porcelain, clay, ceramic and pewter. Outside it is cold, inside it is warm. A round table is set and in the middle a beautiful tureen filled with hot steaming soup. This impression attracted the guest and animated her imagination.Slowly the collector`s interest focused on soup-tureens from the 18^th century. The fine pottery and the polish of the pewter fascinated her. She became enthusiastic about the quality of the material and the transparent varnish. Erna Kunstmann got curious about the origin and the history of the valuable pottery.

Since a couple of years the passionate lady covers her collection with scientific studies: What is  the story of that dish? When and where was that piece probably produced? Or is this tureen perhaps a fake object? All these questions are a challenge for the collector.

She searches intensively for answers and well-founded dates, to prove the authenticity of her choice collection. The objects are photographed on all sides, the acquistion is carefully documented and the circumstances of the bargain are systematically kept in a catalogue. The lady reads technical literature and special catalogues in order to compare her collected tureens with reliable expertises. It is a difficult business

Usually Mrs Kunstmann is successful with her endeaver, however sometimes she fails and is quite disappointed. The sincere collector has to travel to attend international auctions or other public sales. Visiting experts is very important. A good advice or new information is always welcomed. Meanwhile Erna Kunstmann is well known as an experienced collector. Therefore sometimes valuable tureens are privately offered to her, which might help to complete her first-rate collection. The lady sometimes follows traces of an interesting piece of pottery, which seems a suitable object to add to her exhibition. Since 1996 more than a hundred baroque tureens are sitting in safe glass cases in the mansion in Mecklenburg.

Further Activities

Besides family life, engagement in her husband`s enterprise and public obligations the active woman worked on the family tree, dated back to the 16^th cetury. She added important dates to the genealogical table, especially from the female lines.

A science in itself.

Since 1949 the slender woman is a member of the Ulmer Alpenverein. Together with her husband she had climbed veritable summits of  the Himalaya. Nowadays the widow joins monthly hiking tours in the nearby countryside.

Present and Future

The vital senior represents joy of life and happiness. She talks very vividly about the various periods of her life. You feel, that Erna Kunstmann is fully content in her sunlit appartment in Ulm. Her advice for the younger generation says: “Enjoy your work and gain happiness. Put your whole concentration in what you are doing.”

Erna Kunstmann would like to complete her collection of the 18^th century. She still misses representative soup-tureens from Northern Germany, the area around Danzig and from Eastern Europe, formerly called Böhmen und Mähren. These “white spots” the enthusiastic collector wants to vanish, hopefully by ways of trading.

A pretentious aim for the future.

Monika van Koolwijk