Although the detail has been ‘playing’ off the original colour, the beauty of this Johann Baptist Stahl, Mettlach, Phanolith plaque finds itself almost enhanced by Hadrian6 digitalization effort. Johann Baptist Stahl (1869 - 1932), was not only a designer and modeler, but the inventor of the Phanolith. Growing up in a family of potters, 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 at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. Influenced in part by art nouveau, Jean-Baptist Stahl took inspiration from Greek mythology, and of rural life. Usually, the white translucent figures are finely set on a blue or green background, his very favourite hue. Striking is his absolute eye for the detailed modelling of his figures in a very delicate and lively way. Jean-Baptiste Stahl achieved mastery of the so-called ‘pates-sur-pates’ style in that his rather flat reliefs of his mature period demonstrate the three-dimensional illusion most prominently. Jean-Baptiste Stahl exploring the variation of the translucency of the white porcelain, in a manner comparable to that of painters, simulated light, depth and plasticity by varying the brightness of the colours. Only a fraction of his original works, were rescued post war, from the debris of the Villeroy & Boch factory building, by his grandson Erich Stahl, who was only an infant when Jean-Baptiste Stahl died. All of Jean-Baptiste Stahl’s work was solely from his lifetime employment at Villeroy & Boch in Mettlach, Saarland.
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