August 23, 2025 Leaving from our temporary home hub in Veľké Leváre we travelled to Modra, Slovakia, a major site for Anabaptist/Haban and Slovak/Haban ceramics. Modra is significant for the production of Anabaptist/Haban ceramics historically and is working to keep the tradition alive through its museums and a studio facility that teaches maiolica techniques, using patterns amassed by Moravian painter, potter, and amateur archaeologist Heřman Landsfeld. Our first stop in Modra took us to the Museum of Slovak Ceramic Sculpture (Múzeum slovenskej keramickej plastiky), displaying the history of ceramics in Modra, and when there we had the good fortune of seeing a special exhibition of Heřman Landsfeld’s work as a master potter, archaeologist, and archivist on view at the museum.
“This man, who called himself a Moravian Slovak, was born 13 August 1899 at Malenovice in Moravia. Heřman was not from a family engaged in the arts, but he himself had a proclivity for painting. His father was a baker but did not demand that his son follow in his footsteps.
“In 1913, the young Landsfeld was discovered by Marie Vořechová-Vejvodová, an academic painter at the town school in Zlín, who had come to find new ceramic painters for the school in Modra. He began attending the school that same autumn. He went from a support position to painting ceramics.
“Modra became his home, with a brief hiatus, until 1939. In those years, he mastered the potter’s wheel, was the head of the ceramics workshop, collected countless pottery shards, and prepared exhibits and exhibitions. He also met his future wife, Alžbeta Gajdová, who had come to Modra for a five-month course in painting, modelling, and pattern drawing. Together, they illustrated the ethnographic book Podunajská dedina by Antonín Václavík.
“His archaeological activities were interesting and striking – on the sites of old Haban courtyards in Sobotište, Košolná, Veľké Leváre, and other places he discovered not only fragments but also complete parts of kilns and pottery” (One Day in Modra).
The Museum of Slovak Ceramic Sculpture is part of the network of Slovak National Museums, an extensive cohort of museums focussed on preserving traditional Slovak culture. On the same site you find the Ignác Bizmayer Gallery, a three-storey gallery in a tower that houses the works of Bizmayer, a legendary Slovak ceramic sculptor.
“The Ignác Bizmayer Gallery presents a selection of the works of Slovakia’s finest figurine artists. It is located in the round bastion of the town fortification system dating to the early 17th century. It was opened during the World Ceramics Congress in 1994 . . . Ignác Bizmayer was born in Košolná in western Slovakia in 1922. He was from a family with Haban roots . . . Habans were immigrants from Germany who began to arrive in what is today western Slovakia in the 16th century. They were Anabaptists – radical followers of Luther’s Reformation. Their lives were guided by the principles of original Christianity: economic and social equality. They demanded reformation of the Church and society. They created religious and social communities with a strict regime that governed their economic and social life, which caused them to be driven from Switzerland. They made their way to Germany, Austria, Italy, and some went to Moravia, from where they were also expelled (they came into conflict with authorities). They found refuge in the Kingdom of Hungary, where from the late 16th century into the early 17th century they settled in roughly 40 locations in western Slovakia: Skalica, Holíč, Sobotište, Veľké Leváre, Stupava, Častá, Košolná, etc.” (One Day in Modra).
Images of the Heřman Landsfeld exhibition at the Museum of Slovak Ceramic Sculpture:
Images of The Ignác Bizmayer Gallery:
Next stop: Modra Maiolica
Also found in Modra is the studio and shop known as Modra Maiolica. It began as a ceramic school for teaching Haban painting at another location in Modra, then it was turned into a commercial factory, and its current incarnation takes the form of a large studio with classrooms, a museum, and a shop. There are vestiges of its rich past evident in the studio where large car kilns, no longer in use, have been left as reminders of the busy commercial facility it once was. It is still very active, but now focusses on keeping the maiolica painting of the Slovak Haban ceramics tradition alive. Many workshops are offered at Modra Maiolica and symposia, festivals, and sales events are all part of the effort to keep the folk tradition of painting on maiolica relevant. For more information see:
