| National Museum of American History

Line engraving from original painting by Claude Lorrain, also called Claude Gellée, once in the Gallery at Houghton. Now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Alternate title: Morning in the Harbor. Print removed from George P. Marsh's copy of The Houghton Gallery, vol.

Description: Line engraving from original painting by Claude Lorrain, also called Claude Gellée, once in the Gallery at Houghton. Now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. Alternate title: Morning in the Harbor. Print removed from George P. Marsh's copy of The Houghton Gallery, vol. 1. Notation on mounting sheet in pencil by S. R. Koehler: "A Sea Port. Claude le Lorrain. Canot. Taken out for framing, Mar. 17, '94." SI Secretary's Library stamp embossed below image.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1775

original artist: Lorrain, Claude
delineator: Farington, Joseph
engraver: Canot, Pierre Charles
publisher: Boydell, John

ID Number: 1978.0534.02.40
catalog number: 1978.0534.02.40
accession number: 1978.0534

Colored print of two hunters with their dogs beside a marshy lake with high rushes. One hunter stands in a flat-bottomed boat, shooting at two birds in flight. One dog stands ready to retreive. The other dog is delivering a dead bird to his master.Currently not on view

Description (Brief): Colored print of two hunters with their dogs beside a marshy lake with high rushes. One hunter stands in a flat-bottomed boat, shooting at two birds in flight. One dog stands ready to retreive. The other dog is delivering a dead bird to his master.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: n.d.

maker: unknown

ID Number: DL.60.2791
catalog number: 60.2791
accession number: 228146

Wooden mallet used to drive chisel into wood block to cut design for Japanese printmaking. One of a group of woodblock-cutter's tools used in Graphic Arts exhibit of Japanese printmaking techniques from about 1890 to 1990s. Identified as No.

Description: Wooden mallet used to drive chisel into wood block to cut design for Japanese printmaking. One of a group of woodblock-cutter's tools used in Graphic Arts exhibit of Japanese printmaking techniques from about 1890 to 1990s. Identified as No. 25 in watercolor drawing GA 03209.02 showing the tools of the block cutter.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: GA.03210.25
accession number: 22582
catalog number: 03210.25

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D. 9¼" 23.5cmOBJECT NAME: PlatePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740SUBJECT: ArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry and ManufacturingCREDIT LINE: Hans C.

Description: TITLE: Meissen plate; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 9¼" 23.5cm; OBJECT NAME: Plate; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1740; SUBJECT: Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 74.139; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 557; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “16” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1945.; This plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; With a petal-shaped edge and a gold rim line the plate has a molded basket weave border in the old ozier (Alt Ozier) pattern. Painted in onglaze enamels the center of the plate contains the so-called “bee” pattern after the insects’ striped bodies (Bienenmuster). Adapted from Chinese and Japanese prototypes, the design is Meissen’s own, with three winged insects around a spray of stylized East Asian flowers tied with a ribbon that drifts above the ground.; Meissen’s “Indian flowers” is a generic term for compositions of peonies and chrysanthemums as well as more fanciful designs like the “bee” pattern that bear little resemblance to known botanical or insect species. India is highly likely to be the source for this type of pattern through the printed and painted textiles that reached Japan through the Indian Ocean trade and also mediated through Chinese silks imported by the Japanese from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. India was the powerhouse for textile production in the sixteenth century and one of the principal forces behind the development of a global trade network through the seventeenth century. The Mughal emperors who ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan at that time constructed beautiful gardens and encouraged the use of floral motifs in the arts and artisan trades. At first naturalistic in their representation in Mughal court painting floral designs became stylized under the reign of Shah Jahan (1628-1658)and the printed and painted cottons of later Mughal rule reflected this development.; Indian textiles were prized in Japan in the early Edo period, especially in conjunction with the tea ceremony where they were used to clean, wrap and store tea making utensils.; For an example of a plate with the same pattern but without the molded basket-weave relief on the rim and with a brown rim line rather than gold see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.250.; On the textile trade in early modern Japan see Denney, J., ‘Japan and the Textile Trade in Context’ in Peck, A., (ed.) 2013, Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile trade 1500-1800, pp. 57-65.; Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 174-175.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1740; 1740

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.74.139
catalog number: 74.139
collector/donor number: 557
accession number: 315259

The sauceboat is part of a large table service known as the Stadholder Service after its first owner, Stadholder Willem V of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange and Nassau (1748-1806).

Description: The sauceboat is part of a large table service known as the Stadholder Service after its first owner, Stadholder Willem V of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange and Nassau (1748-1806). Evidence links the service to a commission from the Dutch East India Company (Ostindianische Compagnie), and as Stadholder Willem V was chief governor of the Company, but precise details about the occasion of the gift to Willem are not known.; The entire service was painted by Meissen artists in polychrome enamels with topographical scenes of places in the Dutch Republic and the Dutch colonial port of Batavia (present day Jakarta). A significant number of the scenes depict properties connected to the Dutch East India Company. Meissen artists painted the scenes with considerable accuracy after contemporary Dutch prints made available to the painting division at the Manufactory. On the sauceboat are two views of the village (now town) of Loenen on the river Vecht. Other Meissen artists painted the floral ornaments, and yet other specialists were responsible for the gold cartouches and ornament on handles, feet, and rims.; The service was molded in Meissen's "New Spanish" design in the rococo style that probably dates to the 1750s. By the 1770s the style was somewhat outmoded.; Provenance: From Meissen in Germany the Stadholder Service was sent to the Netherlands for presentation to Willem V, but when the French invaded in 1795 Willem escaped to England with his large family and took the complete dinner service with him. He did not return with it when he left England a few years later, and William Beckford of Fonthill (1760-1844) acquired the service (it is not known how), probably in the very early years of the nineteenth century. Beckford had a passion for fine and beautiful things, but his ambitious architectural project for the construction of Fonthill Abbey and his collecting activities led to financial difficulties. In 1823 the dinner service was sold at auction to a Mr. Hodges of London. In 1868 Christie’s of London sold the service in lots, and it was then dispersed widely across Europe, but it appears that the Reverend Alfred Duane Pell ((1864-1924) of New York City acquired about fifty or more pieces from the Stadholder Service, possibly on one or more of his European tours.; On this service see Abraham. L. den Blaauwen, 1993, "The Meissen Service of Stadholder Willem V."; On William Beckford see Derek E. Ostergard et.al, 2001, "William Beckford, 1760-1844: An Eye for the Magnificent."; This sauceboat belongs to the Alfred Duane Pell collection in the National Museum of American History. Before Pell (1864-1924) became an Episcopalian clergyman quite late in life, he and his wife Cornelia Livingstone Crosby Pell (1861-1938) travelled widely, and as they travelled they collected European porcelains, silver, and furniture. Pell came from a wealthy family and he purchased the large William Pickhardt Mansion on 5th Avenue and East 74th Street in which to display his vast collection. The Smithsonian was one of several institutions to receive substantial bequests from the Reverend Pell which laid the foundation for their collections of European applied arts in the early twentieth century.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1772-1774

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.P-968
catalog number: P-968
accession number: 225282

A color print of two chestnut horses (Lancet and Fearnaught Boy) with light manes pulling a cutter on a country road. They are joined by a T-shaped tongue, and their harnesses are light and handsome.

Description: A color print of two chestnut horses (Lancet and Fearnaught Boy) with light manes pulling a cutter on a country road. They are joined by a T-shaped tongue, and their harnesses are light and handsome. The driver is wearing a black coat with lapels, gloves, a boat-shaped hat, and a beaver rug over his knees. He is probably their owner David Nevins, Jr. A split rail fence borders the road. Mountains are in the distance, and the landscape is covered with snow.; Lancet and Fearnaught Boy were owned by David Nevins Jr. of Framingham, Massachusetts.; Haskell and Allen’s most memorable productions were their horse prints. A Boston based publisher of lithographs, the firm seems to have issued more large folio images than small. Haskell began as a print seller with Haskell and Ripley (1868) but in 1869 he began a partnership with George Allen. In 1873 they moved to 61 Hanover St in Boston where they prospered for a few years. They went bankrupt in 1878.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1875

maker: Haskell & Allen
artist: Eaton, L. G.
original artist: Leighton, Scott

ID Number: DL.60.3555
catalog number: 60.3555

Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater w

Description: Sentimental genre prints documented the social image of Victorian virtue through domestic scenes of courtship, family, home life, and images of the “genteel female.” Children are depicted studying nature or caring for their obedient pets as they learn their place in the greater world. Romantic scenes picture devoted husbands with their contented, dutiful wives. In these prints, young women educated in reading, music, needlework, the arts, the language of flowers, basic math and science are subjugated to their family’s needs.; These prints became popular as lithography was introduced to 19th Century Americans. As a new art form, it was affordable for the masses and provided a means to share visual information by crossing the barriers of race, class and language. Sentimental prints encouraged the artistic endeavors of schoolgirls and promoted the ambitions of amateur artists, while serving as both moral instruction and home or business decoration. They are a pictorial record of our romanticized past.; This colored print depicts an indoor scene of a man kneeling behind a woman untying the stays of her corset. He wears a high-collared shirt, lace bowtie and striped trousers. Both are wearing slippers and earrings. The man’s expression is somewhat cartoonish. The fireplace has a carved mantle upon which sits a candle holder and lit candle. There is a chair with clothing draped over it. Heavy drapery and a bed are in the background. The rug is patterned.; This lithograph was made by J Shutz, a lithographer who worked for Currier & Ives from 1849-1850. He was the firm’s primary letterer, and was responsible for lettering a large quantity of prints.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1850

maker: Schutz, J

ID Number: DL.60.2281
catalog number: 60.2281
accession number: 228146

Oil on illustration board. Portrait of three star General Alex H. Patch. Patch wear a khaki uniform (without color insignia or stars on his shoulder loops) and a white scarf. He also wears a M1 helmet with three silver stars.

Description: Oil on illustration board. Portrait of three star General Alex H. Patch. Patch wear a khaki uniform (without color insignia or stars on his shoulder loops) and a white scarf. He also wears a M1 helmet with three silver stars. Patch is in front of a green background.
Location: Currently not on view

associated date: 1941 - 1945

associated person: Chase, Joseph Cummings; Chase, Joseph Cummings
artist: Chase, Joseph Cummings

ID Number: AF.46998
catalog number: 46998
accession number: 46998

A charcoal, pastel, and watercolor drawing of American soldiers in the early morning on the Marne in France. Five American soldiers wearing olive drab uniforms and helmets can be seen walking along a dirt road lined with barbed wire.

Description: A charcoal, pastel, and watercolor drawing of American soldiers in the early morning on the Marne in France. Five American soldiers wearing olive drab uniforms and helmets can be seen walking along a dirt road lined with barbed wire. The soldiers are carrying rifles that are covered at the muzzle. Fields of yellow grass surround the soldiers. To the left of the soldiers, beyond the barbed wire, two soldiers are hazily seen in an encampment. Above the encampment, a biplane is flying with a white and blue stripe on the plane's rudder. The drawing is diffused with the yellow morning light. Signed by the artist at bottom right, "Harvey Dunn, AEF"
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1918
associated date: 1917 - 1918

associated person: Dunn, Harvey Thomas
maker: Dunn, Harvey Thomas

ID Number: AF.25710
catalog number: 25710
accession number: 64592

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer from a tête à tête tea and coffee serviceMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 1 5/8 in x 15 3/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 4.1275 cm x 40.005 cm x 26.035 cmOBJECT NAME: TrayPLACE MADE: Me

Description: TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer from a tête à tête tea and coffee service; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 1 5/8 in x 15 3/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 4.1275 cm x 40.005 cm x 26.035 cm; OBJECT NAME: Tray; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1805-1815; SUBJECT: The Alfred Duane Pell Collection; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: The Alfred Duane Pell Collection; ID NUMBER: CE*P-896Fab; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: Alfred Duane Pell; ACCESSION NUMBER: 225282; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords and a star in underglaze blue .; This cup and saucer is from a Meissen tea and coffee service made for two people, and services of this kind for use at breakfast or for intimate meetings are known as têtê à têtê or cabaret services. Most interesting, however, are the enamel painted topographical images of Egyptian landscapes and antiquities, which date the service to the early nineteenth century after the publication of Baron Dominique Vivant Denon’s Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte (Travels in Lower and Upper Egypt) in 1802.; In 1798 Denon traveled to Egypt as a member of Napoleon’s large team of scientists, engineers, artists, and scholars appended to the general’s army of about 20,000 troops who occupied Lower Egypt and chased the Mamluk Turks, then rulers of the country, into Upper Egypt. Known as the savants, these men studied and recorded all that they saw of both ancient and modern Egypt. As an artist, art collector, and antiquarian, Denon marveled at the sites of Egyptian antiquity and recorded in drawings everything that he could get down on paper while traveling with a battalion of the French army into Upper Egypt. His drawings, later engraved and published in the Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte are still a valuable record of Egypt’s ancient sites before the archaeological excavations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the construction of the first and second Aswan Dams.; Napoleon’s campaign was not a military success, his fleet destroyed by the British at the Battle of Abū Qīr Bay near Alexandria on August 1, 1798, thus isolating the French army on land in Egypt and restoring British control of the Mediterranean Sea. His team of scientists, engineers and artists, however, were undoubtedly successful in bringing new knowledge of ancient Egypt to Europe and America. Denon’s Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte was a very successful publication and the spirited account of his experiences was soon translated into English and other languages. It is likely that the enamel paintings on this tea and coffee service were commissioned privately by someone who owned a copy of the Voyage. When compared with the original drawings there are differences in detail and composition, which was not unusual, but for the most part the Meissen painters were faithful to Denon’s record, which was not in color, unlike the rich polychrome enamels seen on the porcelain.; The parts of the service are molded in the severe, but nevertheless ornate, neoclassical style fashionable in designs of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With its origins in France artists and designers who worked in the neoclassical style took inspiration from ancient Roman and Greek art and architecture. Neoclassicism in its most ideologically pure form expressed a taste for elevated, didactic, and moral subjects in rejection of the court culture of the old regime prior to the French Revolution. In the German States, and especially in Berlin, the neoclassical style was favored by designers and architects.; On the cup we see the Meissen painter’s version, after the engraving in Denon’s Voyages, of the “Fountain of Kittah”, a water source in the desert east of the Nile. Denon described the well as “a very singular fountain, since it is situated on a higher level of all the surrounding ground; this fountain consists of three wells six feet in depth, and the strata of which are, first, a bed of sand, and beneath, a free-stone rock, through which the water filtrates and slowly fills the holes that are dug.” The domed structure seen in the painting on the cup was a shelter for travelers, known as a caravansary, but in a later description written by the Englishman, Sir Richard Phillips, the “small covered chambers” were filled with the remains of dead asses and camels “the smell from which is infectious.” Phillips described the water as “brackish” but “drank by the camels without much repugnance.”; Denon's original drawing of the Fountain of Kittah records contemporary life in the Egypt of 1798, and not the Egypt of antiquity.; On the saucer we see another view of the first cataract on the Nile, and Denon drew several riverscapes of the cataract from different vantage points, later engraved in Paris from his original drawings and published in the Voyages.; Bob Brier, Napoleon in Egypt, exhibition catalog Hillwood Art Museum, Brookville, New York: 1990.; Bob Brier, Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.; James Stevens Curl, Egyptomania, the Egyptian Revival: a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.; Egyptomania: Egypt in Western Art 1730-1930, exhibition catalog, National Gallery of Canada with the Louvre, Paris, 1994.; Paul V. Gardner, 1956, 1966 (rev. ed.), Meissen and other German Porcelain in the Alfred Duane Pell Collection.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1805-1815

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.P-896Fab
catalog number: P-896Fab
accession number: 225282

TITLE: Meissen saucer (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.

Description: TITLE: Meissen saucer (Hausmaler); MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 4⅞" 12.4cm; OBJECT NAME: Saucer; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1720-1725; SUBJECT: Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 73.177; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 250; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: None; PURCHASED FROM: Minerva Antiques, New York, 1943.; This saucer is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; The saucer was made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned, dismissed, and sometimes imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.; The saucer was painted in Augsburg in the 1730s, probably by Anna Elizabeth Wald (b.1696), the daughter of gold worker and Hausmaler Johann Aufenwerth (d. 1728). Two hundred years earlier Augsburg was the center of international merchant banking, and it is no coincidence that it was also a center for goldsmith work of exceptional quality. Although no longer a powerful city in the eighteenth century, Augsburg was still renowned for its high quality artisan trades in precious metals, book production, and textiles. Hausmalerei was one among many subsidiary trades that met demands from other workshops, individual clients, and new manufactories like that of Meissen.; The subject painted in onglaze enamel and framed in a cartouche painted in purple, iron-red, and gold, is of an alchemist who watches a crucible smoking on a furnace while his assistant weighs materials behind a table to his right. On the table between them vapors emerge from a large flask. Alchemical subjects occur quite frequently in chinoiseries of this period when alchemy in Europe had an ambiguous status between practices in the transformation of natural materials that had useful and productive outcomes, assaying of metal ores, and the manufacture of colors for example, and that of charlatanry.; For a comparable object see Siegfried Ducret, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1, Braunschweig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1971, plate 377.; On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.; On the history of alchemy see Principe, L., 2012, The Secrets of Alchemy.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 508-509.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1725-1730

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.73.177
catalog number: 73.177
accession number: 308538
collector/donor number: 250

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1884 - 1891

ID Number: 1991.0206.01.B
catalog number: 1991.0206.01B
accession number: 1991.0206

The obverse of this tooth has an image of a full rigged sailing ship stopped in the water, with most of the sails furled or rolled up.

Description: The obverse of this tooth has an image of a full rigged sailing ship stopped in the water, with most of the sails furled or rolled up. Alongside it is the carcass of a big whale, spinning around as the ship’s crew slice and hoist the ‘blanket pieces’ or strips of skin and body fat off the carcass in long sheets onto the deck. Once the long sheets are aboard, they’ll be cut into smaller pieces and tossed into a pot of boiling ‘blubber’ to render into whale oil. Above the scene in flowing script are the words “Ship Swift cutting a large whale.” There are a few registration pinholes within the image, but most of it is lightly drawn freehand. Engraved below the ship are the initials WHS, and in modern ink writing around the initials is written “149890. N.Y. M. Willis./U.S.A.” The number is the Smithsonian’s catalog number; the remainder is a notation by an earlier owner of the tooth. There is also a tag marked “39” stuck to the surface of the tooth in front of the ship’s bowsprit.; The reverse depicts a full-rigged ship plowing hard through heavy seas, with all sails flying. It is chasing a pair of whales lying on the water surface just ahead of its bow. The engraving is very fine but quite shallow on this side, and multiple pinholes indicate that a magazine drawing was laid over the polished tooth and pricked through for the image detail.; Scrimshaw began in the late 18th or early 19th century as the art of carving whale bone and ivory aboard whale ships. The crew on whalers had plenty of leisure time between sighting and chasing whales, and the hard parts of whales were readily available on voyages that could last up to four years.; In its simplest form, a tooth was removed from the lower jaw of a sperm whale and the surface was prepared by scraping and sanding until it was smooth. The easiest way to begin an etching was to smooth a print over the tooth, prick the outline of the image with a needle and then “connect-the-dots” once the paper was removed. This allowed even unskilled craftsmen to create fine carvings. Some sailors were skilled enough to etch their drawings freehand. After the lines were finished, they were filled in with lamp black or sometimes colored pigments.; Scrimshaw could be decorative, like simple sperm whale teeth, or they could be useful, as in ivory napkin rings, corset busks (stiffeners), swifts for winding yarn or pie crimpers. The sailor’s hand-carved scrimshaw was then given to loved ones back on shore as souvenirs of the hard and lonely life aboard long and dangerous voyages.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: mid 19th century

ID Number: DL.149890
catalog number: 149890
accession number: 27163

TITLE: Meissen: Pair of PlatesMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.

Description: TITLE: Meissen: Pair of Plates; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 9⅞" 25.1cm; OBJECT NAME: Plates; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 63.244. AB; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 378 AB; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Arthur S. Vernay, New York, 1943.; These plates are from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychoanalysis and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; Sprays of natural flowers take up the center of these plates. The reserves on the flanges frame paintings in onglaze enamel of songbirds perched on branches that were likely based on hand-colored plates from Eleazar Albin’s (1713-1759) two volume work A Natural History of Birds, first published in London in 1731, with a second edition in 1738. The Meissen manufactory had a copy of the work, one of the earliest illustrated books on birds that Albin completed with his daughter Elizabeth. Keeping caged songbirds was popular with many people across a broad spectrum of the eighteenth-century middle class and nobility, and their decorative potential was exploited especially in wall coverings, textiles, and ceramics.; The specialist bird painters (Vogelmaler) at Meissen were low in number compared to the flower painters, but the term “color painter” (Buntmaler) was a fluid term indicating that painters moved from one category to another as demand required, especially for flower, fruit and bird subjects.; The low relief pattern on the flanges of the plates is the so-called “New Dulong” (Neu Dulong) pattern named for the Amsterdam merchant who was a dealer for Meissen. Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) recorded modeling a trial plate for a table service for Monsieur Dulong in June 1743. The process of creating shallow relief patterns was laborious and required considerable skill, and the “New Dulong” pattern was one of the first to break away from the formality of the basket weave designs to introduce a flowing pattern in the rococo style.; These plates belong to the same or similar pattern as the tureen, cover, and stand (ID number 1992.0427.20 abc.); On graphic sources for Meissen porcelain see Möller, K. A., “Meissen Pieces Based on Graphic Originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.85-93; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.; On relief decoration see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober , p. 103, 104, 77-No. 60.; On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 412-413.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.63.244B
catalog number: 63.244B
accession number: 250446
collector/donor number: 378k

A 20-gun American sailing warship covers the upper portion of one side of this intricately detailed scrimshaw sperm whale tooth. Nearly every sail is set; flags are flying; and every gun port is open with its gun out and ready for action.

Description: A 20-gun American sailing warship covers the upper portion of one side of this intricately detailed scrimshaw sperm whale tooth. Nearly every sail is set; flags are flying; and every gun port is open with its gun out and ready for action. Unusually, the flying flags and pennants are polychrome, with red stripes.; Below are two smaller ships in their own etched checkerboard frames, sailing towards each other on a collision course. Normally these would represent different views of the larger ship above, but both of these sailing ships are merchant vessels, without any guns. The vessel on the right is spewing smoke out of a midship smoke stack, and may be either an auxiliary steamer or a whaleship trying out a whale. In trying out, a whale’s outer layer of body fat or “blubber” was cut into small pieces and tossed into a hot cauldron to render it down into liquid.; The other side of the tooth is carved with a hillside town, with several levels of buildings dominated by a large cathedral with a tall steeple reaching up into the sky. The steeple also has red accents. On the lowest level along the waterfront are two arches; a “D” is carved into one, and a shallow “S” was carved into the other. However, the “S” was scratched out and not in-filled with black pigment to make it stand out, like the rest of the tooth’s carving. Below in the harbor are two small but detailed sailing ships without sails, probably at anchor. The one on the right has a smoking stack similar to the vessel on the other side of the tooth, but much of that ship is gone because the base of the tooth is broken and missing.; Although the style of the carving on this tooth is relatively simple, it was made by an experienced schrimshander, as shown by the amount of detail, the depth of the etching and the infilling.; Scrimshaw began in the late 18th or early 19th century as the art of carving whale bone and ivory aboard whale ships. The crew on whalers had plenty of leisure time between sighting and chasing whales, and the hard parts of whales were readily available on voyages that could last up to four years.; In its simplest form, a tooth was removed from the lower jaw of a sperm whale and the surface was prepared by scraping and sanding until it was smooth. The easiest way to begin an etching was to smooth a print over the tooth, prick the outline of the image with a needle and then “connect-the-dots” once the paper was removed. This allowed even unskilled craftsmen to create fine carvings. Some sailors were skilled enough to etch their drawings freehand. After the lines were finished, they were filled in with lamp black or sometimes colored pigments.; Scrimshaw could be decorative, like simple sperm whale teeth, or they could be useful, as in ivory napkin rings, corset busks (stiffeners), swifts for winding yarn or pie crimpers. The sailor’s hand-carved scrimshaw was then given to loved ones back on shore as souvenirs of the hard and lonely life aboard long and dangerous voyages.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: DL.374484
catalog number: 374484
accession number: 136263

The French lawyer and mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) was one of the first to develop a systematic way to find the straight line which best approximates a curve at any point. This line is called the tangent line.

Description: The French lawyer and mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) was one of the first to develop a systematic way to find the straight line which best approximates a curve at any point. This line is called the tangent line. This painting shows a curve with two horizontal tangent lines. Assuming that the curve is plotted against a horizontal axis, one line passes through a maximum of a curve, the other through a minimum. An article by H. W. Turnbull, "The Great Mathematicians," published in The World of Mathematics by James R. Newman, emphasized how Fermat's method might be applied to find maximum and minimum values of a curve plotted above a horizontal line (see his figures 14 and 16). Crockett Johnson owned and read the book, and annotated the first figure. The second figure more closely resembles the painting.; Computing the maximum and minimum value of functions by finding tangents became a standard technique of the differential calculus developed by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz later in the 17th century.; Curve Tangents is painting #12 in the Crockett Johnson series. It was executed in oil on masonite, completed in 1966, and is signed: CJ66. The painting has a wood and metal frame.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1966

referenced: Fermat, Pierre de
painter: Johnson, Crockett

ID Number: 1979.1093.07
catalog number: 1979.1093.07
accession number: 1979.1093

Free blown green glass container with a long neck, a round squat body and an applied curved spout. Florentine bottles were used for the distillation of flower oils.Currently not on view

Description: Free blown green glass container with a long neck, a round squat body and an applied curved spout. Florentine bottles were used for the distillation of flower oils.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 17th-18th century

ID Number: 1991.0664.0929
collector/donor number: SAP 1017
accession number: 1991.0664
catalog number: M-06325; 1991.0664.0929

One of a set of four glass bottles of powdered or crystalized pigment used in Japanese printmaking. GA 3211.16d is the red pigment. Paper label in Japanese; stopped with cork.

Description: One of a set of four glass bottles of powdered or crystalized pigment used in Japanese printmaking. GA 3211.16d is the red pigment. Paper label in Japanese; stopped with cork. According to Tokuno's description, these colors-- white, red, blue, and yellow--were used to print the triptych series Inaka genji (the rustic genji), GA*03212-03216.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: GA.03211.16d
accession number: 22582
catalog number: 03211.16d

Japanese wood block print. Landscape with two kimono-clad female figures in foreground; men engaged in agricultural activities in background with waterwheel. Left-hand print in a triptych with GA 03213 and GA 03215.

Description: Japanese wood block print. Landscape with two kimono-clad female figures in foreground; men engaged in agricultural activities in background with waterwheel. Left-hand print in a triptych with GA 03213 and GA 03215. 24 separate impressions were required to complete the image from 14 printing surfaces on eight blocks, of which this is the 9th progressive proof, adding turquoise to landscape and costume details.
Location: Currently not on view

maker: Morikawa, Kokichiro

ID Number: GA.03216.09
catalog number: 03216.09
accession number: 22582

Engraving after painting formerly attributed to Eustache Le Sueur once in the Salon at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, England. Now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, attributed provisionally to Thomas Gousse. Print removed from George P.

Description: Engraving after painting formerly attributed to Eustache Le Sueur once in the Salon at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, England. Now in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, attributed provisionally to Thomas Gousse. Print removed from George P. Marsh’s copy of The Houghton Gallery, vol. 2.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1773

maker: A. B. & W. Transit Company
artist attribution: Le Sueur, Eustache
publisher: Boydell, John
engraver: Aliamet, Francois Germain

ID Number: 1978.0534.03.40
accession number: 1978.0534
catalog number: 1978.0534.03.40

Pencil with ink wash sketch on paper of a landscape of a town along the banks of a river. At center on the far bank is a large building, possibly a cathedral or castle, which has apparently been damaged by shell fire.

Description: Pencil with ink wash sketch on paper of a landscape of a town along the banks of a river. At center on the far bank is a large building, possibly a cathedral or castle, which has apparently been damaged by shell fire. To the right of this along the river are several other tall buildings, some with spires and towers. Below the town is a river wall and below that is a set of stairs leading to a walking path along the river. Indistinct figures can be seen along the river's edge. Signed at bottom left by the artist, "Peixotto, 1918".
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1918

associated person: Peixotto, Ernest Clifford
artist: Peixotto, Ernest Clifford

ID Number: AF.25865
catalog number: 25865
accession number: 64592

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1968-1970

author: Waters, Alice

ID Number: 2016.0085.11
accession number: 2016.0085
catalog number: 2016.0085.11

Colored print of two dogs lying in the grass. Barrel in right background. Basket with two bottles and apples in left background.Currently not on view

Description (Brief): Colored print of two dogs lying in the grass. Barrel in right background. Basket with two bottles and apples in left background.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1833-1842

maker: D.W. Kellogg and Company

ID Number: DL.60.2357
catalog number: 60.2357
accession number: 228146

TITLE: Meissen figure of a peasant woodcutterMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 5⅜" 13.7 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1745SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a peasant woodcutter; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 5⅜" 13.7 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1745; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 75.189; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 366; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; The peasant seen here splitting a log, was modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler under commission for Count Heinrich von Brühl’s (1700-1763) confectionary kitchen. The confectioners were responsible for the decoration of the dessert tables, and porcelain figures joined those made out of sugar, almond paste, or wax, which were not as durable or prestigious as porcelain. Count Brühl planned entertainments similar to those at court where elaborate table decorations were made to compliment the theme of the event. In this figure the heavy labor of hewing wood is expressed through the weight of the axe as it falls. For court society this figure represented someone on the margins of their world who might arouse curiosity and the fleeting amusement of imagining themselves in a condition quite unlike their own, indeed, entertainments at which a figure like this one formed part of a table decoration often featured members of the court dressed as rural peasants.; Count Heinrich von Brühl became director of the Meissen manufactory in 1733. Under Friedrich August III (1696-1763), Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, von Brühl held high office, and in 1746 became the first individual to hold the position of Prime Minister in the State. He was immensely wealthy and lived extravagantly; his office required that he entertain visiting diplomats and members from other European courts. Many commissions undertaken by the Meissen Manufactory between 1733 and the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756 were for Count Brühl, and his collection of table figures was large.; This figure was probably part of a themed decorative display for the dessert table at official and festive banquets, and the subject of rural life was a source of fascination for the nobility at the Dresden court. The porcelain figures formed part of the design in conjunction with decorations sculpted in sugar and other materials to create an elaborate display for the final course of the meal. The practice of sculpting in sugar, marzipan, butter, and ice for the festive table goes back for many centuries, and porcelain figures were a late addition to the tradition.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67. See the same publication for Maureen Cassidy-Geiger's chapter on court table decorations 'The Hof-Conditorey: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain", pp.121-131. See also Ivan Day, 'Sculpture for the Eighteenth-Century Garden Dessert', in Harlan Walker (ed.) Food in the Arts: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, 1999, pp. 57-66.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 424-425.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1740-1745

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.75.189
catalog number: 75.189
accession number: 319073
collector/donor number: 366

Art

A Sea Port

Snipe Shooting

Japanese printing

Meissen plate

Meissen porcelain sauceboat (Stadholder Service)

Fearnaught Stallions

The Wedding Night

Alex McCarrell Patch

Morning on the Marne

Meissen porcelain cup and saucer (part of a service)

Meissen saucer (Hausmaler)

Majolica plaque

Scrimshaw Sperm Whale Tooth, mid 19th Century

Meissen plate

Scrimshaw Sperm Whale’s Tooth

Painting - Curve Tangents (Fermat)

Florentine Bottle

Carmine, yo-ko

A Rustic Genji (Inaka Genji)

The Stoning of St. Stephen

Untitled

Herb Vegetable Sauce

The Two Dogs

Meissen figure of a woodcutter