Tiled stove

Description

This mighty stove once occupied the hall of the powerful Benedictine abbey at Muri, whence it entered the Museum in 1895 thanks to the iron and stove dealer August Scheuchzer Dür. Michael Leontius Michler, who signed and dated the stove, came from a family of stove potters. He settled in Muri in the 1750s and, supported by the prince abbot, supplied stoves to the monastery in Muri, to the abbey in Wettingen, and to distinguished private households in central Switzerland. A similar stove, dated 1770, in the council chamber of the town hall of Starts was purchased for 321 guilders and 3 pounds, a sizeable sum, if one considers that the inn in Muri was sold for 3225 guilders in 1747. The tiles of this stove are exceptionally small; they are decorated in a simple pictorial sequence, like an unfolded picture book, and may have catered to a different taste from that for large format architectural tiles, portraying more pretentious subjects. The monastery of Muri and some of its estates in Thurgau are depicted in a stiff and linear manner. The remaining tiles show broadly painted fantastic landscapes with figures within narrow curling Rococo frames.