Albert Einstein on a Bicycle, 1933 – Porcelain Art Mug

A driveway in Santa Barbara, February 1933. A man of fifty-three rides towards the camera with both hands on the bars and his whole face laughing. Behind him a white house, a second bicycle propped against the shrubs, shutters open to the winter sun. In front of him, thrown long across the asphalt, the shadow of a bicycle and its rider.

Einstein had come to California at the beginning of January for his third winter at Caltech. On 30 January, while he was here, Hitler became Chancellor. In the middle of March he decided to go back to Europe and wrote his resignation to the Prussian Academy of Sciences during the crossing; by the time the ship reached Antwerp he had resolved never to set foot on German soil again, and he never did. On 7 October 1933 he sailed for America and stayed. This photograph belongs to the weeks in between — a Berlin professor on a Californian driveway, laughing, with everything about to change.

The print is a small snapshot with a deckled edge, its emulsion gone warm over ninety years. It is held at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, in the Albert Einstein Collection, under the call number F 5314A. The record names the place — in front of Ben Meyer's house in Santa Barbara — but not the photographer.

The fourth product image shows the print as the archive holds it, with the part printed on the mug marked. The white border and the staining along the lower edge fall outside the mark; the crease across the upper left corner runs into it and has been retouched, as has a small loss at the corner itself. The mug carries the photograph alone — straightened, cleaned of specks, with the warm tone of the paper kept.

Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

Albert Einstein riding a bicycle, in front of Ben Meyer's house in Santa Barbara, California, February 1933. Photographer unrecorded. Leo Baeck Institute, New York, Albert Einstein Collection AR 136, call number F 5314A. Reproduced by permission of the Institute.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.