The Jopeko 404/12 bears more than a passing resemblance to the celebrated Ruscha 313 designed by Kurt Tschörner (released in 1954). The Jopeko 404 vases pictured (12 cm high) are smaller than the Ruscha 313 (15cm high). Jopeko also made a larger 17cm high version of the 404.

As far as I am aware Kurt Tschörner did not work for Jopeko and the two factories were located about 80km apart (Jopeko – Ransbach Baumbach, Ruscha – Rheinbach).

There is not doubt that this form was first produced by Ruscha. It is therefore probable that due to the popularity of the Ruscha 313 Jopeko decided to copy the form to maximise their profits. Even the form number used by Jopeko has a certain symmetry to that used by Ruscha.

This post forms part of a series of blogs, Seeing Double, which looks at examples of different West German pottery companies producing very similar forms or decors (you can see the others by clicking here).