Von Hindenburg Hutschenreuther Relief Portrait Plate Blue Glaze Reichsprasident

Original German porcelain relief portrait plate depicting Paul von Hindenburg, modeled in raised relief under a soft blue glaze and produced by the Abteilung für Kunst (Art Department) of Lorenz Hutschenreuther at Selb in Bavaria. The plate measures 10 inches (approximately 25.4 cm) in diameter and is named in raised capital letters, von HINDENBURG, molded into the lower border.

The plate is finely potted white porcelain. The central field carries a three-dimensional molded bust of Hindenburg turned slightly to his left, glazed in tonal blue-on-white that reads almost as a sculptural medallion, the modeling capturing the heavy brow, the deep-set eyes, and the broad upswept moustache that made his features among the most recognizable in Germany. He is shown in civilian dress, a dark suit with a wing collar and knotted tie, rather than in uniform. Encircling the portrait is a border of gilt dots and dashes, and the rim beyond is molded with a continuous embossed scroll-and-spiral relief left in the white. The reverse bears the printed green mark of the maker, a lion within an oval over the initials L.H.S., with Hutschenreuther above, Selb below, and Abteilung für Kunst beneath that, and is fitted with an old twisted-wire hanging loop across the foot.

The civilian portrait and the form of the mark together place the plate in the years of the Weimar Republic rather than the First World War. The Abteilung für Kunst mark in this form was used from about 1919 into the later 1920s, and the choice to depict Hindenburg out of uniform, in the sober dress of a head of state, corresponds to his service as Reichspräsident (President of the Reich), to which he was first elected in 1925 and re-elected in 1932. Wartime Hutschenreuther plates of Hindenburg, by contrast, show him uniformed as a Generalfeldmarschall with the Pour le Mérite and Iron Cross and are dated to 1914–1915. This is therefore best understood as a presidential-era commemorative, produced for a public that continued to venerate Hindenburg through the 1920s as the living embodiment of the old army and of national continuity after the collapse of the monarchy.

The figure it honors had by then become the central personality of German public life across three eras. Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934) had fought as a young officer in the wars of German unification, at Königgrätz in 1866 and at the proclamation of the Empire at Versailles in 1871, before retiring in 1911. Recalled at the outbreak of war in 1914, he and his chief of staff Erich Ludendorff destroyed the invading Russian armies at the Battle of Tannenberg in the war's first weeks, a victory that made Hindenburg a national hero on a scale no other commander approached. He rose to Chief of the General Staff in 1916 and directed the German war effort through its final campaigns. His fame carried him, in retirement and old age, into the presidency of the Weimar Republic in 1925, a post he held until his death in 1934. This plate belongs to the vast material culture of the "Hindenburg cult," the outpouring of portraits, busts, medals, postcards, and commemorative porcelain through which ordinary Germans expressed their attachment to him from the war years onward.

Condition is excellent and very nearly pristine. The plate is structurally sound with no chips, cracks, or restoration. The relief portrait is crisp and the blue glaze clean and bright throughout, with no discoloration or fading; the gilt-dot border is complete and the embossed white rim sharp. The reverse mark is clear and fully legible, and the old wire hanger remains in place and functional. The plate presents as an exceptional survival with only the most minor traces of handling.

For the collector, the plate offers a strongly modeled, immediately recognizable portrait of the most important German personality of the era, executed by one of Bavaria's leading porcelain houses through its dedicated art department, and named in the mold. Hindenburg personality material is a well-established collecting field spanning the war years and the presidency, and a sculptural relief plate in the blue-glaze manner, in this state of preservation, is a more substantial and display-worthy example than the common transfer-printed plates. Its Art Department mark, relief modeling, and near-perfect condition set it well above ordinary commemorative ware.