 His family had merged with the Wentzel family of Master Potters (or "Töpfermeisters"), when his great-grandfather, Johann Friedrich Krehan, married a Wentzel daughter in 1803.In 1900, having achieved the standing of Master Potter, Max Krehan took over the Krehan Pottery in Dornburg from his father, and thereafter worked with his brother, Karl Krehan, a Journeyman.In 1919, when the now-famous Bauhaus school of art and design began in nearby Weimar, its founder Walter Gropius established a workshop in production pottery, with the intention that it would be taught at a factory in Weimar.