Løvemose//Lovemose Denmark
Løvemose//Lovemose Pottery Denmark, 1942-1980s
Løvemose was a pottery in the town of Kædeby on the island of Langeland in central Denmark, run by husband and wife team Marie Hansen (d. 2008) and Johannes Hansen (d. 2003).
It started in 1942 and ran until the mid 1980’s. It was of a reasonable size with up to 15 staff working there at its peak, and very popular with tourists, especially after building of the Langeland bridge in 1962.
In recent years pottery by Løvemose has gained a whole new audience, as the pottery has been “re-discovered”, previously being looked down upon by many people as only producing “tourist ware”. As more of the pottery has come onto the secondary market people are now realising the quality of this pottery.
A huge range of work and styles that came out of Løvemose Pottery, and there are pieces that are up there with the best of 20th Century Danish studio pottery.
One of most popular and most collectable designs currently is “Graasten” (meaning Grey Stone, but also the name of a town in southern Denmark which is the location of the Royal summer residence). It has a similar feel about it to “Amazonas” from BR Pottery Denmark. The rustic but refined style of it is popular currently with many contemporary potters.
I also like the heavily carved and textured pieces from Lovemose. Carved designs similar to these are the ones you will come across most often, and are probably the ones which were often sold to the tourist market.
Løvemose is nearly always stamped to the base of each piece, although depending on the clay used it can be obscured or difficult to read sometimes. If you are lucky you will find one with the orignal label still.
One of the most beautiful pieces of Lovemose I have come across is the very large stoneware bowl below, which has the most intriguing metallic lustre on a fascinating “crawling” glaze.
While a lot of pieces from Lovemose are in natural colours – they also produced many pieces with brightly coloured glazes – blues, reds, yellows etc.
