1960s SILBERDISTEL FLOOR VASE Nr. 12/40

A big and beautiful SILBERDISTEL floor vase 12/40 dressed in their highly coveted, textural glaze, here in shades of orange and brown with hints of yellow and green.  Fully marked on the base. SILBERDISTEL (named for a kind of silver thistle native to the Austrian and Swiss Alps) was founded in 1947 by Johann and Grete Breu in Gevelsberg in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.  The company was managed early on by the ceramicist Walter A. Heufelder (b.1926).  Its fortunes got a major boost in 1952 following its participation in a joint exhibition with the Worms Terra Sigillata Manufaktur at the Hanover fair.  By the mid '50s, the company had to hire a complement of 23 employees to meet demand.  Nevertheless the factory would always remain a small studio pottery, despite the remarkable expansion of the German ceramics industry over the next two decades. SILBERDISTEL made a very high quality, artisanal line of vases, bowls, jugs, and other ceramic objects.  It became well