Thomas Mann in Küsnacht, 1930s – Porcelain Art Mug

Thomas Mann left Germany in February 1933 for a lecture tour and did not return. From September 1933 he rented the house at Schiedhaldenstrasse 33 in Küsnacht, on the eastern shore of Lake Zurich, and stayed five years. He was formally expatriated in December 1936; the University of Bonn withdrew his honorary doctorate in the same month.

The photograph shows him on the terrace of that house: wicker chair, flat cap, reading glasses, a manuscript box open on the marble table in front of him. It is not a portrait of the Nobel laureate — the prize was already four years behind him when he arrived — but of an ordinary working morning in exile. Volumes of the Joseph novels were written here, while the language he wrote in was being taken over by the state he had left.

Küsnacht is also where this collection is curated, three streets from that terrace. That is the reason the photograph is in it.

Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

Photograph of Thomas Mann at Schiedhaldenstrasse 33, Küsnacht, 1930s. Thomas-Mann-Archiv der ETH Zürich, TMA_0316.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.