Curiosities of pipe clay from the Westerwald
30 April 2016
In recent years, curator Don Duco has taken a closer look at the sub-collection of pipe clay figurines in the Amsterdam Pipe Museum. Early figurines since the 16th century were described in the first introductory article. After that the intererst was focussed on by-products in various Western European pipe producing centres. In the third and last article, by-products from the Westerwald are discussed. In the Rhine area the activity flourished and grew into an important industry in the early twentieth century. These statuettes are certainly trivial, but once collected and documented, this material sheds light on a curious piece of history of an industry that has since fully disappeared.
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