449 - Villeroy & Boch Mettlach beer stein with genre scene and motto banner, pewter lid, 1 litre, 1885

Villeroy & Boch Mettlach beer stein with genre scene and motto banner, pewter lid, 1 litre, 1885 Stoneware, light glazed, the impressed decoration coloured. Beer stein by the Villeroy & Boch factory in Mettlach, slender conical form with granulated wall, capacity one litre. On the front a drinker with blue broad-brimmed hat, brown coat and blue neckcloth holding a glass of dark beer in one hand; before him on a wooden table a grey stoneware jug with relief decoration and pewter lid. On the reverse a banner with the German motto Lieber Bier als Verdruss und Aerger schlucken. Und Rauch dabei, so vertreibst du dir die Mucken. Applied pewter lid with turned vase-shaped thumb rest, the rim of the lid engraved Eisernes Kreuz 1886. On the base the impressed abbey mark with the inscription VILLEROY & BOCH PATENT METTLACH, below the form number 1642, the Roman one for the litre, the number 33 and the year 85 in a rectangle. Good age-related condition. H. 23.5 cm. 360-degree photo on our website. Villeroy & Boch began production at Mettlach on the Saar in 1809; from the 1880s an extensive stein production developed there, marked with the impressed abbey mark. The bases carry the form number, a Roman numeral for the capacity and a two-digit year date; for the years 1883 to 1887 this date was set in a rectangle. The stein was thus made in 1885, the engraving of the pewter lid names the following year. Drinking mottos were part of the standard repertoire of stein decoration; engravings with club names and dates on the pewter were common in the late 19th century and mark the stein as the personal piece of a club member.