Jean-Baptiste Stahl

Who is Jean-Baptiste Stahl?

Jean-Baptiste Stahl was the inventor and designer of the Phanolith. He was born in Oberbetschdorf, Alsace, in 1869, as the son of Louis Stahl and Anna Maria Braun

He grew up in the traditional pottery of his family. His studies of ceramics, modelling and sculpture led him to Strasbourg and Höhr-Grenzhausen. His detailed, translucent and finely worked porcelain reliefs gained him a gold medal on the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. Partly influenced by Art Nouveau, Jean-Baptiste Stahl took topics from Greek mythology and rural life. Usually, the white translucent figures are finely set on a blue or green background that partly shines through. Striking is his absolute eye for the detailed modelling of his figures in a very delicate and lively way. In order to increase the three-dimensional illusion, he carefully modulated the transparency of the white porcelain. On the one hand, parts of the scene and figures with higher translucency, i.e. darker tint, were precisely placed to evoke the impression of shadow. On the other hand, he used this means in a way to let parts in the background systematically fade out the farer away they should appear.The most prominent figures in a scene show the highest fraction of pure white. In this way Jean-Baptiste Stahl achieves mastery of the so-called pate sur pate style in that his rather flat reliefs of his mature period demonstrate the three-dimensional illusion most prominently. Jean-Baptiste Stahl explored the variation of the translucency of the white porcelain as painters do, who simulate changing lights, shadows, depth and plasticity by varying the brightness of the colours. He signed his work either with JStahl or JS.