Jasba are well known for the Cortina decor. Usually found in black and white but also occasionally with different base glazes (for exaple yellow and green – see here). Apparently this decor was introduced by Jasba in 1956 and takes its name from the winter olympic games at Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy which took place in the same year. The white and black perhaps representing the snow on the Dolomite Alps. Items in this range are often found with Jopeko “Form and Farbe” labels.

Jopeko however also produced a glaze decor so similar that when items are placed side by side it is not possible to discern from which company the item originated – except for the addition of three bright spots. The three spots (always yellow, red and blue but not necesserily in the same order) were apparently added by Jopeko to sufficiently differentiate thier items from those made by Jasba and so circumnavigate the copyright regulations of the time. An advertisment from the time released by Jopeko shows a vase in this decor but without the three spots, presumably it had been carefully aligned so that they were just out of view.

The two factories are located just a few hundred meters apart in the small German town of Ransbach-Baumbach.

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, here, here and here)