This plate is part of the “Urbino” tableware service designed by Trude Petri-Raben in 1931. It is regarded as a masterpiece of design history and as a model for timeless porcelain design. An example is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The “Urbino” service is still produced and successfully marketed by the Royal Porcelain Manufactory Berlin (KPM) today.
The design of the plate was partly inspired by the simple ceramic plates of the Renaissance in northern Italy. This is why the service was named after the Italian city of Urbino. Another source of inspiration for Petri-Raben was East Asian vessel forms, which were on display at the “Chinese Art” exhibition in Berlin in 1929. The design principles advocated by the Deutscher Werkbund and the Bauhaus are also reflected in Petri-Raben’s work. The striking modernity of her designs is particularly evident in this plate’s flat, disc-shaped form, without a well or a raised rim. The so-called coupe plate broke with traditional forms and continues to shape plate design to this day.
Alongside the pragmatic approach to form, the service’s plain white finish is of great significance. Today, plain white tableware is widespread, but at the time, white porcelain was used primarily in technical settings, such as laboratories and hospitals. The absence of decorative elements represented a break with the tradition of bourgeois tableware sets, in which richly ornamented porcelain served as a status symbol for the family. Laboratory porcelain, with its simple, functional and unornamented design, also became a model for the Deutscher Werkbund’s approach to modern, functional design.
Trude Petri-Raben was born in Hamburg in 1906, where she attended the ceramics department at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule (State School of Arts and Crafts). In 1927, she moved to Berlin, where she continued her training in the ceramics department at KPM. While still a student, she began working as a freelance designer for KPM in 1928. When Günther von Pechmann, a member of the Deutscher Werkbund, took over as director of the manufactory in 1929, Petri-Raben was appointed as a permanent designer at the age of 23. Her “Urbino” tableware service received the gold medal at the 6th Milan Triennale in 1936 and a Grand Prix at the Exposition Internationale in Paris in 1937. Even after Petri-Raben emigrated to the United States in 1949, she continued her collaboration with KPM, creating many more successful designs for the manufactory until 1967.
Early works by Trude Petri-Raben, as well as lesser-known works, designs and photographs from the period following her move to North America, are being presented at the Werkbundarchiv – Museum der Dinge to mark the artist’s 120th birthday this year, as part of the Object Stage presentation “Trude Petri-Raben – Between Berlin and Chicago”. The Object Stage opens on Wednesday, 25 November, at 6 pm.
