The firm L.Hjorth is a long established Danish ceramics manufacturer with a history extending back to the mid nineteenth century when the potter Lauritz Hjorth, after serving an apprenticeship at the the Faience factory of Edvard Chr. Sonne and travels abroad, founded a business in his own name in 1859 at Ronne on Bornholm, a Danish island in the Baltic Sea. Success was almost immediate and the firm moved to larger premises three years later concentrating their production on decorative items which by the 1880s were being sold in the big department stores of Paris, London and Berlin, as well as in New York and Australia. Lauritz Hjorth was joined by his children who took over the factory following his death in 1912. The business was to continue for another two generations and two great granddaughters still run today a working museum devoted to the firm’s products.

The abstract mark on the base below ‘L Hjorth’ can be read as ‘HA’ and is found on other pieces, usually accompanied by a model number as here (‘23/41’). It stands for Hans Adolf Hjorth (1878-1966), one of Lauritz Hjorth’s sons, who is known to have fired his first stoneware in 1902. His pieces were sold in his Father’s shop and were very popular, meriting a gold medal at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1910. A stoneware series in greyish brown was produced from 1913 onwards and this is most likely what we have here (source : Danish House Trading). Certainly, the absence of a reindeer mark, later commonly to be found on L.Hjorth pieces, indicates a dating before 1927 when it was first introduced. Marked pieces in this glaze and colourings are not so often found and especially not in this larger size making this beaker vase a highly desirable collector’s item.