Art

Panorama of the Army of the Cumberland

The National Museum of American History is not an art museum. But works of art fill its collections and testify to the vital place of art in everyday American life. The ceramics collections hold hundreds of examples of American and European art glass and pottery. Fashion sketches, illustrations, and prints are part of the costume collections. Donations from ethnic and cultural communities include many homemade religious ornaments, paintings, and figures. The Harry T Peters "America on Stone" collection alone comprises some 1,700 color prints of scenes from the 1800s. The National Quilt Collection is art on fabric. And the tools of artists and artisans are part of the Museum's collections, too, in the form of printing plates, woodblock tools, photographic equipment, and potters' stamps, kilns, and wheels.

Topic: Art

Near the Fort De Souville - 1918

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
Circa 1918
ca 1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
associated person
Stanley-Brown, Rudolph
Stanley-Brown, Katharine
artist
Stanley-Brown, Rudolph
ID Number
AF.59731M
catalog number
59731M
accession number
216896

Indian with Tomahawk Weathervane

Depicting an Indian with a raised tomahawk. The image is the same on both sides. Painted figure with a five plume headpiece in blue, black yellow and red; blue jacket with five yellow buttons and a yellow belt; blue garters, brown shoes.
Description (Brief)
Depicting an Indian with a raised tomahawk. The image is the same on both sides. Painted figure with a five plume headpiece in blue, black yellow and red; blue jacket with five yellow buttons and a yellow belt; blue garters, brown shoes. The figure holds a bow in front hand and a raised tomahawk in the back hand. There is a brace to hold the tomahawk and arm on one side and the other side has a brace across shoulders which connects to support rod.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1850-1899
ID Number
CL.65.0918
accession number
256396
catalog number
65.0918

Indian with Tomahawk Weathervane

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1850-1899
ID Number
CL.65.0919
catalog number
65.0919
accession number
256396

Chatel Chehery

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
Circa 1918
depicted
October 1918
date made
ca 1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
associated person
Stanley-Brown, Rudolph
Stanley-Brown, Katharine
artist
Stanley-Brown, Rudolph
ID Number
AF.59707M
catalog number
59707M
accession number
216896

Meissen chinoiserie coffeepot and cover

TITLE: Meissen chinoiserie coffeepot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen chinoiserie coffeepot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 7" 17.8cm
OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1725-1730
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 76.363 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 563 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “72” in gold (gold painter’s mark).
PURCHASED FROM: Julius Carlebach, New York, 1945.
This coffeepot 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.
Meissen’s chinoiserie period began in the 1720s following the arrival from Vienna of Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775) who brought with him superior skills in enamel painting on porcelain. His highly significant contribution to Meissen was to develop a palette of very fine bright enamel colors that had so far eluded the team of metallurgists at the manufactory, and that were new to onglaze enamel colors on faience and porcelain in general. Höroldt and his team of painters used these colors to great effect in his singular vision of chinoiserie subjects, many of them based on drawings from what later became known as the Schulz Codex; a facsimile copy of the Schulz Codex can be seen in Rainer Behrend’s Das Meissener Musterbuch für Höroldt-Chinoiserien: Musterblätter aus der Malstube der Meissener Porzellanmanufaktur (Schulz Codex) Leipzig, 1978. Application of the term chinoiserie to this class of Meissen porcelains is problematic, however, because Johann Gregor Höroldt developed his ideas from a variety of sources and referred to the “chinoiseries” as “Japanese” (Japonische) figures, an early modern generic term for exotic artifacts and images imported from the East.
On one side of the coffeepot a servant brings a tray of food to a man sitting at a table in an exotic garden setting, on the other side a woman tends two children at play. On the cover are scenes of the preparation of tea, a subject common to many chinoiseries. Items like this passed through many hands in Meissen’s painting division where artisans applied specialist skills in the enamel painting of figures, flowers and foliage, gold scrollwork, and the polishing of the gold after firing.
Meissen tea and coffee services of this early period were often sent as gifts to members of European royalty favored by the Saxon and Polish courts. They served as tokens of loyalty and affection to relatives in other royal houses with family connections to the Saxon House of Wettin.
Chinoiserie is from the French Chinois (Chinese) and refers to ornamentation that is Chinese-like. The style evolved in Europe as Chinese luxury products began to arrive in the West in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries through the major European trading companies. Artisans were quick to incorporate motifs from these products into their work and to imitate their material qualities, especially the Chinese lacquers, embroidered silks, and porcelains, but their imitation was not informed by first-hand knowledge of China or an understanding of Chinese conventions in two-dimensional representation, and instead a fanciful European vision emerged to become an ornamental style employed in garden and interior design, in cabinet making, faience and porcelain manufacture, and in textiles. Illustrated books began to appear in the second half of the seventeenth century that describe the topography of China, its peoples and their customs, and these sources were copied and used by designers, artists, printmakers, and artisans including Johann Gregor Höroldt at Meissen.
On Johann Gregor Höroldt see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 17-25.
On gift-giving see Cassidy-Geiger, M., 2008, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts 1710-1763.
On chinoiserie see Impey, O., 1997, Chinoiserie: the Impact of Oriental Styles on Western Art and Decoration; on the porcelain trade and European exposure to the Chinese product see the exhibition catalog by Emerson, J., Chen, J., Gardner Gates, M., 2000, Porcelain Stories: from China to Europe
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 78-79.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1725-1730
1725-1730
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.76.363ab
catalog number
76.363ab
collector/donor number
563ab
accession number
1977.0166

Meissen plate

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 9½" 24.2cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1750-1760
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 63.242
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 8
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “61” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
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.
The plate has a spray of naturalistic flowers offset in the center with additional scattered flowers painted in overglaze enamels. European flowers began to appear on Meissen porcelain in about 1740 as the demand for Far Eastern patterns became less dominant and more high quality printed sources became available in conjunction with growing interest in the scientific study of flora and fauna. For the earlier style of German flowers (deutsche Blumen) Meissen painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s publication, the Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745), in which many of the plates were engraved after drawings by the outstanding botanical illustrator Georg Dionys Ehret (1708-. The more formally correct German flowers were superseded by mannered flowers (manier Blumen), depicted in a looser and somewhat overblown style based on the work of still-life flower painters and interior designers like Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) and Louis Tessier (1719?-1781), later referred to as “naturalistic” flowers.
The basket weave border on the rim is in shallow relief known as the old Ozier (Alt Ozier) pattern. Following the appointment to the manufactory in 1733 of court sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775), modeling techniques became more sophisticated. The process of creating shallow relief patterns on table wares was laborious and required considerable skill. The sources for designs in relief came from pattern books and engravings, especially those by the French designer Jean Bérain the Elder (1638-1711), and the Nuremberg designer Paul Decker (1677-1713) among many others. Their designs were applied in architecture, interior stucco work and wood carving, furniture, wall coverings, and ceramics. The “old ozier” pattern seen here was first recorded at Meissen in 1736 as the work of the modeler Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1695-1749); “ozier” refers to the French and English term “osier” for the willow native to European wetlands from which the strong and flexible twigs are used to make wickerwork baskets. Here we see an early relief pattern dating back to 1736 with a style of flower painting of about fifteen to twenty years later. Re-use of original models and patterns was not uncommon at Meissen, and old stock might well remain unpainted for many years.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit painters were paid less than workers who specialized in figures and landscapes, and most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. Details in gold were applied by specialists in gold painting and polishing at Meissen. In the late eighteenth century flower painters were even busier and consumer taste for floral decoration on domestic “china” has endured into our own time, but with the exception of a manufactory like Meissen most floral patterns are now applied by transfers and are not hand-painted directly onto the porcelain.
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 the Alt Ozier pattern see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober, p.56.
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: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp.384-385.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1750
1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.63.242
catalog number
63.242
accession number
250446
collector/donor number
8

Meissen figure of a pikeman

TITLE: Meissen figure of a pikemanMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 4⅞" 12.4 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic Furnishing
Description
TITLE: Meissen figure of a pikeman
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 4⅞" 12.4 cm
OBJECT NAME: Figure
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1750
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 78.430
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 507
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in blue on unglazed base.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
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.
In 1745 Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeled a series of soldier figures to be presented as a gift from the Saxon court for Karl Peter Ulrich von Holstein-Gottorp (later, and very briefly, Czar Peter III of Russia (1762)) who liked to play with toy soldiers throughout his adult life. This figure of a pikeman comes from that series, but originally appeared as a Saxon soldier dressed in a scarlet and white uniform.
Pikemen were in the front line of an advancing army. They lowered their pikes, consisting of a wooden shaft with a steel point on the end, to hinder the cavalry from breaking through to the ranks behind them. The pikemen caused injury to the horses, unseating their riders who were then open to attack from soldiers carrying muskets or swords.
War was seldom absent from European soil in the eighteenth century, and those that involved Saxony/Poland included the Great Northern War (1700-1721) between Russia and Sweden; the War of Polish Succession (1733-1735) in which Saxony/Poland was at the center of a conflict that spread to many parts of Europe; the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), which was a series of wars fought in an attempt to dismantle the Habsburg succession after the death of Charles VI in 1740; the Seven Years War of 1757-1763), a war that inflicted severe damage to Saxony at the hands of Prussia, and was the first global conflict with fighting between the French and the British in India and North America.
Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.
The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, p.456-457.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1750
1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.78.430
catalog number
78.430
collector/donor number
507
accession number
1978.2185

Stork Weathervane

Depicting a stork. Made of molded metal, wings and feathers defined, three toes and taloned feet, scales on legs, and protruding feathers on breast at base of neck. Vertical metal support attached to front of figure and metal directionals below figure.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Depicting a stork. Made of molded metal, wings and feathers defined, three toes and taloned feet, scales on legs, and protruding feathers on breast at base of neck. Vertical metal support attached to front of figure and metal directionals below figure.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
19th century
ID Number
CL.65.0964
accession number
261195
catalog number
65.0964
collector/donor number
T-6

Meissen figure of a woodcutter

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

Meissen plate

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

Meissen figure: the quack doctor

TITLE: Meissen figure group of the quack doctor with a monkeyMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 5½" 15.3 cmOBJECT NAME: Figure groupPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1745SUBJECT: The Hans Syz
Description
TITLE: Meissen figure group of the quack doctor with a monkey
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 5½" 15.3 cm
OBJECT NAME: Figure group
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: 74.140
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 615
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue beneath a small glazed patch on bottom of base.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1947.
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.
Modeled by Johann Joachim Kändler (1706-1775) and Peter Reinicke (1711-1768), this version of the Quack Doctor comes from Marcellus Laroon’s (1653-1702 the Elder) Cryes of the City of London Drawne after the Life, a set of engravings published in 1687 by Pierce Tempest (1653-1712). Laroon’s drawings of the vendors, entertainers, charlatans, and rogues who inhabited the commercial heart of London in the late seventeenth century is a rich compendium of urban street life when the city was the foremost financial, marketing, and maritime center in Europe.
The model copies quite faithfully Laroon’s “Mountabanck” holding a vial in his raised hand as he attempts to persuade an audience to buy. It is thought that Laroon’s image is a representation of Hans Buling, a Dutchman who lived in London and became a notorious street performer. Images of mountebanks, charlatans or quack doctors were common by the late seventeenth century, often in the form of cheap broadsides printed from illustrated woodcuts with a ballad underneath. It was usual for these characters to perform on a makeshift stage with a monkey and a “Merry Andrew”, a clown or stooge often dressed like a Harlequin. The character of the quack doctor is not far removed from Dottore of the Italian Comedy. The Meissen version of the Quack Doctor was a popular figure and there are many copies in existence today.
Marcellus Laroon the Elder worked as a costume painter in the studio of the prolific portrait artist Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723). Published in 1720, the ballad called The Infallible Doctor is a rare example of a quack doctor’s patter that might apply to this figure. On ballads see the Bodleian Library website http:www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/images.htm
Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.
The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.
On street traders see Shesgreen, S., 1990, The Criers and Hawkers of London: Engravings and Drawings by Marcellus Laroon.
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.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 446-447.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1750-1760
1750-1760
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.74.140
catalog number
74.140
accession number
315259
collector/donor number
615

Panorama of the The Union Army of the Cumberland

Late in the American Civil War (1861–1865), veterans of the Union Army of the Cumberland, believing that General William S. Rosecrans had been unfairly removed from command in 1864, engaged William D. T. Travis to paint a documentary of the general's career.
Description
Late in the American Civil War (1861–1865), veterans of the Union Army of the Cumberland, believing that General William S. Rosecrans had been unfairly removed from command in 1864, engaged William D. T. Travis to paint a documentary of the general's career. As a staff artist for Harper's Weekly and the New York Illustrated News, Travis had followed the army, seeing and sketching much of what he later painted. This scene, the first of 32 on the huge panorama produced by Travis, represents the young soldier's farewell to home and family. Each scene is 8 feet high and 16 feet long, on a single roll of canvas over 500 feet long. When he finished in May 1865, Travis took the panorama on tour. The artist narrated from a prepared script as the canvas was wound from one of two great spindles to the other. From 1865 to 1871, in lecture halls and churches throughout the Midwest, Travis displayed the panorama to considerable acclaim.
commissioned
Rosecrans, William S.
maker
Travis, William DeLaney Trimble
ID Number
AF.67500MA
accession number
241045
catalog number
67500MA

Meissen figure from the Monkey Band

TITLE: Meissen figure of a monkey flautistMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 5¾" 14.6 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1765-1766SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomest
Description
TITLE: Meissen figure of a monkey flautist
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 5¾" 14.6 cm
OBJECT NAME: Figure
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1765-1766
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 65.386
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 379
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “14” impressed (series number).
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 Monkey Band, begun by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in about 1747 and completed by him with Peter Reinicke ((1715-1768) by 1766, was a very popular series. The nineteen figures were based on drawings by Christophe Huet (1692-1765) in the manner of his singeries, the painted interiors featuring anthropomorphic monkey figures in the Chateau of Chantilly north of Paris and in the Hôtel de Rohan in Paris itself.
A music stand in the Monkey Band identifies the figure group with the opera seria Lucio Pipirio Dittatore by Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783) premiered in Dresden in 1742. German by birth, Hasse was a prolific and highly successful composer in the Italian style, and with his equally successful wife, the singer Faustina Bordoni (1700-1781), he worked for several European courts, but composed and directed music for the Dresden court for most of his active career.
Like the chinoiseries, the singeries represented an exotic fantasy, but one that expressed a form of mockery of human behavior. Monkeys were exotic pets, and captive chimpanzees were a source of great interest because of their obvious kinship to humans that both fascinated and repelled Europeans. Where did a chimpanzee or a monkey stand in relation to the human species? Eighteenth-century naturalists asked questions that sought to throw light on the nature of being human, and they looked for answers and understanding in the behavior of other animals.
Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
Go to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum for more information on the Monkey Band with a recording of the fragment of notes visible on the music stand: http://risdmuseum.org/notes/151_live_from_risd_its_the_meissen_monkey_band
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.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 458-459.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1750
1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.65.386
catalog number
65.386
accession number
262623
collector/donor number
379

Fere-En-Tardenois - Evening of August 1, 1918

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1918
Circa 1918
ca 1918
associated date
1917 - 1918
associated person
Stanley-Brown, Rudolph
Stanley-Brown, Katharine
artist
Stanley-Brown, Rudolph
ID Number
AF.59727M
catalog number
59727M
accession number
216896

Meissen pair of pug dogs

TITLE: Meissen: Pair of pug dogsMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 4½" 11.4cm.OBJECT NAME: Animal figuresPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic Furn
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Pair of pug dogs
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 4½" 11.4cm.
OBJECT NAME: Animal figures
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 66.168 A,B
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 60 A, B
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
These animal figures 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 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.
Johann Joachim Kaendler(1706-1775) received a commission to model several pug dogs in 1740-1741, and in 1736 his work book records the re-modeling of 4 cane handles with pugs (“4 Stock Hacken mit Mops geandert…”). Pugs, or “Mops” in German, are an ancient breed known in China in at least 500 BCE, and a favored dog in the imperial court in about the 1st century. Pugs became popular lap dogs after they were introduced to Europe by Dutch merchants in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, especially in Holland and England. By the eighteenth century it was de rigeur for aristocratic men and women to own pugs with their even temperament and sociability towards humans. Several Meissen models exist with a woman holding a pug, and with pugs peeping out from under wide crinoline skirts.
It appears that one of the motives behind many of Kaendler’s commissions for pugs was an emblematic one for the Order of the Pug, a secret society modeled on Freemasonry. Pope Clement XII forbade Roman Catholics to join a Freemasons Lodge, and the Order of the Pug was a ruse to side-step his edict.
Meissen models of pugs are numerous and they are found in many public and private collections. Count Heinrich von Brühl, (1700-1763) who held high office in Saxony during the electoral rule of Frederick Augustus III (1696-1763), was very fond of pugs and his favorite dog was modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in life size. In October 1741 Kaendler records modeling a new snuff box for Count Brühl with a pug represented on the lid (Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, 2002, p.83).
Count Heinrich von Brühl became director of the Meissen manufactory in 1733. Under Friedrich August III (1696-1763) the 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. Many commissions undertaken by the Meissen Manufactory between 1733 and the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756 were for Count Brühl.
Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.
The animals are painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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; on Meissen’s pugs see pp. 307-308.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 478-479.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.66.168B
catalog number
66.168B
accession number
270694
collector/donor number
60B

Indian Weathervane

Depicting an Indian with a bow and arrow. Silhoutted figure made of two layers of sheet metal held togther by rivets. The figure has a quiver and a stylized plume head-dress with three points. There are three loops for a support rod.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Depicting an Indian with a bow and arrow. Silhoutted figure made of two layers of sheet metal held togther by rivets. The figure has a quiver and a stylized plume head-dress with three points. There are three loops for a support rod.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1850-1899
ID Number
CL.65.0914
accession number
261195
catalog number
65.0914
collector/donor number
T-1

Framed Photograph of California Redwoods

This photograph of California redwoods is one of forty-nine framed black and white photographic prints bequeathed to the Smithsonian by William F. Bucher of Washington, D.C.
Description (Brief)
This photograph of California redwoods is one of forty-nine framed black and white photographic prints bequeathed to the Smithsonian by William F. Bucher of Washington, D.C. Bucher, a cabinetmaker, framed each photograph in wood of the same species as the tree depicted in the print. The photos were displayed in a special exhibition, Our Trees and their Woods at the United States National Museum in 1931.
The trees depicted in this photograph were located in California and the image was made by A. Gaskill, courtesy U.S. Forest Service. The frame is made of solid California redwood.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1929
frame maker
Bucher, William F.
photographer
U.S. Department of Agriculture. Forest Service
ID Number
AG.115767.38
catalog number
AG*115767.38
accession number
115767
maker number
41

Spread-Winged Eagle Figure

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1861
ID Number
CL.65.1074
catalog number
65.1074
accession number
256396

Meissen plate

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

Rooster Weathervane

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CL.65.0950
catalog number
65.0950
accession number
256396

Christ on the Cross with Burning Trees

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1870-1879
artist
Frequis, Pedro Antonio
maker
Frequis, Pedro Antonio
ID Number
CL.176399
catalog number
176399
accession number
31785

Carousel Horse

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1904 - 1909
maker
Dentzel, Gustav A.
ID Number
CL.66.251
accession number
261195
catalog number
66.251

Meissen milk pot

TITLE: Meissen milk potMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen milk pot
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 6⅛" 15.6cm
OBJECT NAME: Milk pot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1738-1745
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 71.204.a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 718
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; impressed five-pointed star (former’s mark).
PURCHASED FROM: Otto Buel, Lucerne, Switzerland, 1947.
This milk pot 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.
Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeled the elaborate handle on this milk pot for a service commissioned by Count Heinrich von Brühl (1700-1763) in 1738, but this piece probably comes from another service for which the model for the handle was reused. The elaborate polychrome cartouches frame overglaze harbor scenes and landscapes painted in purple enamel.
Sources for enamel painted harbor scenes and landscapes came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1730s until the 1750s. The Meissen manufactory accumulated folios of prints, about six to twelve in a set, as well as illustrated books and individual prints after the work of many European artists, especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) and Jan van de Velde (1593-1641. These subjects served to affirm a sense of national pride in the young Dutch Republic, of their long-distance trade overseas and reliance upon their waterways. The eighteenth-century aristocratic taste for these picturesque works was enjoyment of a world very different to that of the court and city, depicting people involved in trade or rustic pursuits from whom the nobility would be socially distant, but nevertheless invested with curiosity, amusement, and fascination for their social inferiors.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (figures and animals) were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. Ornamental gold painting was the work of another specialist.
On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters see Möller, K. A., “’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ 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. 84-93.
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: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 312-313.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1738
1738
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.71.204ab
catalog number
71.204ab
accession number
297499
collector/donor number
718

Goat Weathervane

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1800-1899
ID Number
CL.65.0941
catalog number
65.941
accession number
256396
256396

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