Guildhall Museum Collection 1-16 Bisque with composition

Ernst Heubach was a company in Köppelsdorf,

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

, Germany, that manufactured porcelain-headed

bisque doll A bisque doll or porcelain doll is a doll made partially or wholly out of bisque or biscuit porcelain. Bisque dolls are characterized by their realistic, skin-like matte finish. They had their peak of popularity between 1860 and 1900 with French ...

s from 1885 onwards

Location

Köppelsdorf is a part of

Sonneberg Sonneberg in Thuringia, Germany, is the seat of the Sonneberg district. It is in the Franconian south of Thuringia, neighboring its Upper Franconian twin town Neustadt bei Coburg. Sonneberg became known as the "world toy city", and is home to ...

, in the

Landkreis Sonneberg Sonneberg is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the south of Thuringia, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the west clockwise) the districts Hildburghausen, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, and the Bavarian districts Kronach and Coburg. History The district wa ...

, in Thuringia due north of

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. For fifty years the wooded countryside formed the border between the two Germanys, Sonneberg lying in the

GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. Sonneberg was the centre of the German toy-making industry; it is the home of the , many doll manufacturers and

PIKO Piko (stylized PIKO, pronounced "peek-oh") is a German model train brand in Europe that also exports to the United States and other parts of the world. History Founded in 1949, PIKO was once a state-owned enterprise in the German Democratic R ...

model railways.

History

''Gebrüder Heubach of Licht and Sonneberg was a separate firm.'' The Ernst Heubach porcelain works opened in 1858 with 50 employees. It traded as ''Ernst Heubach, Köppelsdorf'' until 1893, when it became ''Ernst Heubach, Köppelsdorfer Porzellanfabrik''. Later the firm would manufacture porcelaine for the electrical industry. In 1915, the founders sons, Ernst and Hans joined the firm, then Hans was killed in the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Beatrice Marseille married Ernst Heubach II. There was thus a family connection between the two firms. Often brothers would do similar jobs in the two firms. A Heubach sculptor had a brother who did the same job at Armand Marseille. In 1919 the firm merged with

Armand Marseille Armand Marseille was a company in Köppelsdorf, Thuringia, Germany, that manufactured porcelain headed ( bisque) dolls from 1885 onwards. Location Köppelsdorf is a part of Sonneberg, in the Landkreis Sonneberg, in Thuringia due north of Nurember ...

but they separated in 1932. The combined firm was known as the ''Vereinigte Köppelsdorf Porzellanfabrik vorm. Armand Marseille und Ernst Heubach''

Works

The company manufactured bisque heads from moulds for their own dolls and for other doll-makers: Cuno & Otto Dressel (''Jutta''), Johannes Gottilf Dietich (''Igodi''), Gebrüder Ohlhaver (''Revalo''), Seyfarth & Reinhardt (dolls with the ''SUR'' mark) and Adolf Wislizenus. The dolls are stamped with a variety of marks that sometimes contain a horseshoe. Most of their dolls had closed mouths; dolls tend to be smaller than the dolls of the other manufacturers- the vast majority are under 50 cm tall. Erst Heubach made a large variety of baby and toddler dolls with mould numbers including, 300, 320, 342 and 399. They produced ethnic character dolls, the Pirat Baby range had mould numbers of 418, 316, 444, 452, 463.

Examples

These dolls are collectables and can be found in many private collections and museums.

Notes

Bibliography

* * Doll manufacturing companies Companies based in Thuringia {{Doll-stub