Porzellanikon — Global Heshmat

Rosenthal K5123, Copyright: Jessica Ulrich

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The Porzellanikon is a national museum complex devoted to porcelain and ceramics. It is located in Selb and Hohenberg an der Eger, Bavaria. The museum documents the history of porcelain production, design, technology, and material culture and houses extensive collections related to European porcelain and the ceramics industry. The museum also houses the Rosenthal Company Archive. According to Hassan Heshmat’s autobiography, Rosenthal bought three designs from him. Two of these designs were found at the Porzellanikon in Selb in 2025, during Hegasy’s research. These are: "Woman with Bowl" (model number 5123) and "Standing Woman" (model number 5124, Collection RAS, Permanent Loan, Oberfrankenstiftung Bayreuth). The following year, Hegasy discovered that the Rosenthal catalog "Hundert Jahre Porzellan" (edited by Bernd Fritz, Stuttgart, 1982) lists Heshmat as the artist and designer of three designs in 1958. In his autobiography, he refers to the porcelains as "Peasant Woman with Basket" and "Very Frail Peasant Woman." He also writes that he exhibited the two figures ten years later in Rome and Geneva. The faded black-and-white illustrations in the autobiography show that the figures had white faces. This suggests that the black skin colour was introduced in Rosenthal’s 1958 design, a color that is never found in Heshmat’s figures except when the material itself is black, such as clay. While Heshmat tried to find a visual language to represent Egyptians to Egyptians, Rosenthal intuitively emphasized the "oriental" character of Egyptian artwork. The figures were later shown in their original form, i.e. not reworked by Rosenthal, in 1968 in Rome and Geneva.