Ceramics from Heimberg and Steffisburg – from Thun to the World – Research at Thun Castle

Around 1900, almost fifty potteries were still at work in the Heimberg-Steffisburg region. The plain Heimberg household ware of the 18th century had grown into a veritable art industry: for the Belle Époque guests on Lake Thun, richly painted pieces were created with edelweiss, alpine roses and town views – the «Thun majolica» (c. 1870–1914), which strictly speaking is not majolica at all, but painted, lead-glazed earthenware with a resonant trade name.

The Thun Castle Foundation today preserves 3,082 ceramics – the second-largest ceramics collection in the canton of Bern and the world’s most important collection of Thun majolica: more than 1,000 pieces, among them 131 vedute plates with views of Thun and the Bernese Oberland. Added to this is a large holding of original design drawings by the region’s leading ceramists – above all by Friedrich Ernst Frank (1862–1920), the most important draughtsman and ceramics painter of the Wanzenried manufactory in Steffisburg.

From January 2023 to September 2025, the ceramics researcher Dr Andreas Heege carried out a complete inventory of our entire ceramics holdings on behalf of the CERAMICA Foundation Basel – as part of the national ceramics inventory CERAMICA CH. Every single piece can since be researched freely online, with photograph and scholarly description. A detailed scholarly analysis of the Thun majolica, however, is still to come – and this is exactly where our research project begins.

Explore the collection online

Thanks to the complete inventory, our ceramics are now accessible in several freely available databases:

• CERAMICA CH – collection page of the Thun Castle Foundation – the entire holdings with photographs and descriptions, plus the history of the collection.
• CERAMICA CH – image database – the national inventory of ceramics in Switzerland (c. 1500–1950), with scholarly articles on Thun majolica, the Wanzenried manufactory and the Heimberg-Steffisburg region.
• mmBE collection catalogue and KIMnet – the catalogues of the Bernese and Swiss museums with our holdings.
• e-periodica: journals of the Ceramic Friends of Switzerland – the specialist journal digitised back to 1946, including the «Revue» from 2021.

Further reading: the latest literature

• Andreas Heege / Andreas Kistler: Keramik aus Langnau. Zur Geschichte der bedeutendsten Landhafnerei im Kanton Bern, 2 volumes, Bern 2017 – freely available as a PDF.
• Andreas Heege / Andreas Kistler: Poteries décorées de Suisse alémanique, 17e–19e siècles. Collections du Musée Ariana, Genève, Milan 2017 (German/French).
• Jonathan Frey / Andreas Heege / Andreas Kistler / Alfred Spycher: Keramik aus Blankenburg. Abraham Marti (1718–1792), ein bernischer Landhafner, Bern 2023.
• Brigitte Meles / Andreas Heege: Zürcher Kachelöfen. Das Hafnerhandwerk in der Stadt Zürich und seine Produkte, Schaffhausen 2023.
• Hermann Buchs: Die Thuner Majolika des Johannes Wanzenried und des Zeichners Friedrich Ernst Frank, in: Jahresbericht Historisches Museum Schloss Thun, 1980 – and: Vom Heimberger Geschirr zur Thuner Majolika, Thun 1988. More in our annual reports & bibliography (in German).

Who researches ceramics in Switzerland

• CERAMICA Foundation Basel / CERAMICA CH – the foundation has promoted ceramics research since 1954 and has been building the national ceramics inventory since 2009; scholarly direction: Dr Andreas Heege.
• Ceramic Friends of Switzerland (Keramikfreunde der Schweiz) – the trilingual association of specialists and collectors, with conferences and the journal «Revue».
• International Working Group on Ceramics Research (Internationaler Arbeitskreis Keramikforschung) – the interdisciplinary forum of the German-speaking countries with an annual symposium.
• University of Bern, Institute of Archaeological Sciences – with the chair for the archaeology of the Middle Ages and the early modern period.
• Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern – excavations and publications, including on Bernese pottery.

Leading ceramics museums in Switzerland

• Musée Ariana, Geneva – the Swiss museum of ceramics and glass, with some 27,000 objects from twelve centuries.
• Swiss National Museum, Zurich – Swiss ceramics from the Middle Ages to the present, with a reference collection of stove ceramics.
• Bern Historical Museum – one of the largest ceramics collections in Switzerland: Langnau, Bäriswil, Albligen, Heimberg-Steffisburg.
• Regional Museum Chüechlihus, Langnau – the most comprehensive ceramics exhibition in the canton of Bern, Langnau pottery from c. 1720.
• Ceramics Museum Matzendorf – the 200-year tradition of the Matzendorf and Aedermannsdorf manufactories.
• Musée de Carouge – faience and terracotta from the Geneva pottery centre of Carouge.
• Château de Nyon – Musée historique et des porcelaines – the reference collection of Nyon porcelain (1781–1813).
• Museum Langenthal – with the Langenthal porcelain – and the Basel Historical Museum – tiled stoves, faience and porcelain.
• And right in our neighbourhood: the local museum «Zur alten Töpferei» in Heimberg – an overview of all ceramics museums in the canton of Bern is provided by CERAMICA CH.

Researching together: our cooperations

Ceramics research thrives on exchange. Our closest partner is the CERAMICA Foundation Basel, which made our complete inventory possible and curates our holdings on CERAMICA CH.

A special connection leads to Brienz: the Swiss Woodcarving Museum and the School of Woodcarving (the «Schnätzi») preserve part of the estate of the sculptor and art teacher Ferdinand Huttenlocher (1856–1925). This is of particular interest to us because around 1908 Huttenlocher also taught at the pottery and drawing school in Steffisburg – the school where the region’s potters refined their drawing and modelling, and where Friedrich Ernst Frank taught as well, whose design drawings we preserve. Thus Brienz woodcarving and Thun pottery join in a shared chapter of Bernese craft history.

Are you researching the ceramics of the region yourself, or do you look after a collection? We look forward to hearing from you: info@schlossthun.ch.

Experience the objects yourself

In the permanent exhibition in the keep you will encounter selected pieces from the ceramics collection – from Heimberg ware to Thun majolica. Find out more about the collection and its more than 17,000 objects on our collection page.