The Hunter's soul sings

Simon Peter Gerz - Modell Nr. 1957

Aus die Sammlung von Paulo Vik Falcon

This is the first line of a famous German folk song about a happy hunter.

A copy of an image from a 1911 commercial catalog of the Steinzeugwerke consortium.

This large 3D beer mug is dedicated to a famous old German song about a happy hunter. The first line of the song is engraved on the mug's facade: "Im Wald und auf der Heide, da such ich meine Freude". Translated into English, this means: "In the forest and on the heath, that's where I'm looking for my joy".
The song "Im Wald und auf der Heide, da such ich meine Freude" is a well-known German folk and hunting song. The text was written by Wilhelm Bornemann in 1816. The melody is attributed to Ferdinand Ludwig Gehricke, who is said to have composed it in 1827, possibly using an older folk manner. The song is an example of the romantic nature poetry and the hunting tradition in the 19th century. 
Listen to the song itself using these links:
[Link]
[Link]
The original version of this mug was made by the Reinhold Hanke manufactory between 1880 and 1895. The mug was decorated with a tin lid with a ceramic inlay depicting a mountain sheep.
In 1911, the Steinzeugwerke trade and industrial consortium was formed in Höhr-Grenzhause. See about it at the link:
[Link]
In 1910, the marketing specialist Paul Merkelbach convinced the renowned major manufacturers Simon Peter Herz I, Reinhold Hanke, Reinhold Merkelbach and Walter Müller to join forces in order to protect their positions in the competitive market. In 1911, Reinhold Merkelbach, Simon Peter Herz, Reinhold Hanke and Walter Müller founded the company Steinzeugwerke Höhr-Grenzhausen GmbH.It was a marketing company specifically designed to sell jugendstil ceramics produced by four factories. The shareholders invested their modern design forms for mugs, bowls, jugs, figurines, and household ceramics in the new GmbH company.
Reinhold Hanke became a member of the consortium. In this capacity, he committed to producing a wide range of new mug designs for the Steinzeugwerke consortium. The agreement required him to create shaped mugs, mugs with distinctive facial expressions, and mugs featuring three-dimensional images of objects.
On behalf of the Steinzeugwerke consortium, Reinhold Hanke created hundreds of custom-made forms. However, he recreated one of his most iconic forms, number 1957, featuring a deer's head peeking out of a hole in an oak tree trunk, with a different inlay on the lid. In the consortium's version, the lid was adorned with a ceramic hunter statue.
However, by the beginning of World War I in 1914, the consortium's partners faced difficulties.
Reinhold Hanke left the consortium in 1913, leaving only Simon Peter Herz I and Reinhold Merkelbach.
By the end of the war in 1918, Reinhold Merkelbach was the sole remaining shareholder of Steinzeugwerke Höhr-Grenzhausen GmbH. At the same time, the molds for making ceramics from other shareholders remained an important asset of the consortium.
In 1936, Steinzeugwerke Höhr-Grenzhausen GmbH became part of Reinhold Merkelbach.
After the end of World War II, Gertz's factory was reopened, and its product range was expanded. The factory's engineers and technologists revived several popular molds from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of these molds was the "Deer Head," which was known as mold number 1957 in the Reinhold Hahke product catalog.
The post-war version of the Gerz mug, for obvious reasons, is more modest and lacks the inlaid lid with the statue.

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