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.

Meissen allegorical figure group representing fire

TITLE: Meissen allegorical figure group representing fireMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 7¼" 18.4 cmOBJECT NAME: Figure groupPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1747SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Col
Description
TITLE: Meissen allegorical figure group representing fire
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 7¼" 18.4 cm
OBJECT NAME: Figure group
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1747
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.28
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 424
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
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.
Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) may have modeled this allegorical representation of fire in May 1747, or it could be the work of Friedrich Elias Meyer (1724-1785). Allegories of the four elements, earth air, fire, and water were cornerstones of the baroque repertoire, rendered in many branches of the visual arts. The figures in this version may refer to Roman mythology and the visit of Venus and Cupid to Vulcan, the keeper of fire and the maker of weapons. In Virgil’s Aeneid Venus persuades Vulcan, her estranged spouse, to make weapons for Aeneas, the son she bore by the shepherd Anchises. (See Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, 2002, Leipzig 2002, p.118).
Allegorical and mythological figure groups, especially when made in sugar or in porcelain to decorate dessert tables at banquets or court festivals, were a focus for conversation and diversion where guests could display knowledge of their meanings and origins derived from Renaissance classical humanism, the literature and visual art of ancient Greece and Rome. Eighteenth-century educated elites encountered allegorical themes as they walked in the parks and gardens of great houses and palaces; fountains, grottoes and architectural features supported large scale sculptures in stone, and more rarely bronze, that personified beings associated with water, the seasons, the hunt, and the four elements.
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 group 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, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 438-439.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1750
1740-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.28
catalog number
1987.0896.28
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
424

Meissen straight-sided bowl

TITLE: Meissen straight-sided bowl or vaseMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen straight-sided bowl or vase
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 2⅞" 7.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Bowl
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1725-1735
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.31
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1243
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in blue on unglazed base; “12” incised.
PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1962.
This bowl 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 straight-sided container with a petal-shaped rim is painted on the exterior and interior with onglaze enamels depicting field flowers and grasses in the Japanese Kakiemon style.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on Deshima (or Dejima) in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants through the island of Deshima, and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
For a detailed account of the Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; see also Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection; Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 182-183.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1725-1735
1725-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.31
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.31
collector/donor number
1243

Meissen dish

TITLE: Meissen dishMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D. 11½" 29.2cmOBJECT NAME: DishPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740SUBJECT: ArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry and ManufacturingCREDIT LINE: Hans C.
Description
TITLE: Meissen dish
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 11½" 29.2cm
OBJECT NAME: Dish
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.07
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 653
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “//” incised; “67” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1947.
This dish 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 belongs to the so-called Red Dragon service first made for the royal court and delivered to the Japanese Palace in 1731. The long dragon and phoenix design follows a Japanese prototype that was itself based on a Chinese forerunner.
The design was attractive to Augustus II partly because of its symbolism, and although many of the motifs on Chinese and Japanese artefacts were opaque to Europeans, it was known that the long dragon represented the Chinese emperor and the so-called phoenix represented the empress. In China, the dragon and phoenix motifs have an ancient history inflected with different meanings over time, and their prototypes are evident on Neolithic ceramics, Shang and Zhou dynasty bronzes. The “phoenix’ in Chinese and Japanese mythology is not the same as the bird that renews itself in fire according to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures. The Chinese feng-huang and the Japanese hō-ō bird represent benevolence and wisdom, inhabiting the air and alighting on earth only at times of harmony and stability. European observers and scholars of Chinese and Japanese cultures named the bird so because of its superficial similarity to the fire bird or phoenix.
The prototype for this design is difficult to verify as there is no record of a Japanese example in the royal collections in Dresden, and there is a theory that the pattern originated at Meissen and was copied by Japanese porcelain painters in Arita after 1740 (Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, p. 262). Japanese versions made before 1730 do exist, and another theory suggests the possibility that the pattern was introduced to Meissen by the Parisian dealer Rodolphe Lemaire and copied for the Paris luxury market where Lemaire sold Meissen pieces passed off as Japanese originals, which were highly sought after and more expensive even than Meissen porcelain (Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Pozellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, pp. 246-264).
Named the “Red Court Dragon” service, this pattern was reserved for use in the royal Saxon court until November 1918 when King Friedrich August III abdicated following the establishment of the Republic of Saxony. A modified design is in production at Meissen today.
For more examples of this service see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, p.276; Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 456-457.
On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 130-131.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.07
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.07
collector/donor number
653A

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. 9¼" 23.5cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735-1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.05
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 409
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 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 basket weave relief on the rim in the old ozier (Alt Ozier) pattern first modeled in 1735.
The onglaze enamel design belongs to the yellow lion pattern (Gelber Löwe), even though the animal wrapped around a bamboo and looking towards an ancient prunus tree is clearly a tiger. There are many Meissen pieces in existence with this pattern and it was first produced for the Parisian dealer Rodolphe Lemaire. On discovery of Lemaire’s fraudulent activity aided by Count Hoym extant pieces carrying this pattern (of which the dish with ID # 69.62 is one) were confiscated and placed in the Japanese Palace that housed the porcelain collection of Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1670-1733); much admired at court the design possibly got the name “yellow lion”because of the animal’s association with kingship.
This plate is one of several versions of the yellow lion service that the Meissen Manufactory produced for the court and for diplomatic gifts.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the former Hizen Province (now the Saga Prefecture) on the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors principally in iron-red, green, sea- green, blue, and pale yellow attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. Arita potters began to export to Europe through the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie) in the middle of the seventeenth century when Chinese porcelain was in short supply during the civil war that led to the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644.
Tigers are not native to Japan, but the animal gained potent symbolic status when adopted from Chinese Buddhist culture in about the sixth century C.E. The tiger, associated with courage in Japanese culture is also representative of the wind, and when depicted with bamboo the creature can symbolize the wind rustling through bamboo. In the dense and impenetrable bamboo forest the tiger is perceived as the only animal capable of moving through its thickets, and the image on this plate may have a residual reference to the tiger’s symbolic relationship to the wind and the forest. Although Europeans were for the most part unaware of Japanese mythology associated with the tiger, this and other images based on Japanese prototypes must have aroused curiosity as well as aesthetic pleasure.
On the Yellow Lion Service see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 95-96, p.277. For a detailed account see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 265-289.
On the Japanese Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection
See also Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
On the tiger in East Asian animal symbolism see K. M. Ball (1927 and 2004) Animal Motifs in Asian Art.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 128-129.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1735-1740
1735-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.05
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.05
collector/donor number
409

Portraits of generals from the French and Indian War

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca1850s
depicted (sitter)
Pepperell, William
engraver
Rogers, John
ID Number
1988.0243.134
catalog number
1988.0243.134
accession number
1988.0243

Meissen tea caddy and cover

TITLE: Meissen tea caddyMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 4¾" 12.1cmOBJECT NAME: Tea caddyPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740SUBJECT:ArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry and ManufacturingCREDIT LINE: Hans
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea caddy
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 4¾" 12.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea caddy
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740
SUBJECT:
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.23ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 782ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: “70” in gold.
PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1948.
This tea caddy 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 tea caddy has a sea-green ground with four reserves framed in gold containing Italianate landscapes with figures in vignettes on the lid. On the shoulders of the caddy are flowers painted in the early woodcut style (Holzschnittblumen) derived from publications like the Archetypa Studiaque Patris Georgii Hoefnagelii of 1592 by Joris Hofnagel and Wenzel Hollar’s (1607-1677) book illustrations of flora and fauna. On one side of the caddy a well-dressed man, woman, and child stand beside a mansion with two figures in the background walking into a distant landscape, on the other in an Italianate landscape with high cliffs rising from the sea, a couple sit with a dog beside them at the foot of a tall carved obelisk with a statue of a female figure before it – a tomb perhaps. On the narrow sides of the caddy a hunter with his dog regards an obelisk and a man peddles wares, or gathers wood, in a rural landscape.
Meissen enamel painters based many of the Italianate landscapes on prints after the work of artists like Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640) and the Parisian printmaker and publisher Gabriel Perelle (ca. 1603-1677), who with his sons Adam and Nicholas produced numerous architectural and landscape works. Perelle produced imaginary landscapes alongside many representations of the palaces, chateaux, and gardens in and near Paris. Meissen artists were encouraged to use their own imaginations when copying from printed sources, and it is not unusual to see similar versions of a figure on various items but within different landscape settings.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes and subjects with figures 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.
On-glaze gold decoration was the work of specialist gold painters and polishers.
Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers, and the equipage for these hot beverages, made in silver and new ceramic materials like Meissen’s red stoneware and porcelain, was affordable only to the elite of European society. Less expensive versions for storing and preparing these products were made from various kinds of wood, from tin, from japanned materials, and in earthenware pottery.
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.
On the introduction of caffeine drinks see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine:The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 324-325.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.23ab
catalog number
1987.0896.23ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
782ab

Meissen tea bowl and saucer

TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D. 4⅝" 11.8cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735-1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.35 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1240 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; three small circles impressed on cup, possibly the former Gottfried Seydel (or Seidel); two six-pointed stars incised on saucer.
PURCHASED FROM: Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, 1962.
This tea bowl and 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 tea bowl and saucer imitate a design from a Japanese Kakiemon style prototype with iron-red grounds in which foliate scrolls pinned with stylized flowers in gold alternate with white panels, two of which carry motifs of scrolls bound by ribbons resembling the Buddhist symbol for learning and two with stylized lotus flowers that represent purity and perfection in Chinese Buddhist iconography. The design is attributed in different published sources to Imari and Kakiemon models.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants, and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
This particular design was much in demand in France late in the eighteenth century, and in England both the Bow and Chelsea manufactories produced versions of the pattern for tea and coffee services. The foliate scroll or arabesque pattern seen on the iron-red panels is known in Japan as Karakusa (also called the octopus scroll and Chinese grass motif). It has its origins in plant patterns of considerable antiquity that reached Japan through China, but appear to have migrated to China from Central Asia and possibly from the eastern Mediterranean. In Japan the Karakusa pattern developed into a popular abstract motif derived from nature that is still in use today. The “octopus” connection comes from the idea that the little “feet” protruding from the stem resemble octopus suckers.
On the development of Japanese Kakiemon and Imari porcelain see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, and on Kakiemon see Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection. See also: Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon; Goro Shimura, 2008, The Story of Imari: the Symbols and Mysteries of antique Japanese Porcelain.
For examples of other items in this pattern see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 310-311; Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 145-148.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 200-201.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1735-1740
1735-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.35ab
catalog number
1984.1140.35ab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
1240ab

Topaz Camp, 1943

Drawn in Topaz War Relocation Center, Utah. Although Akio Ujihara donated this watercolor along with others, this particular painting was done by Toshio Asaeda.Currently not on view
Description
Drawn in Topaz War Relocation Center, Utah. Although Akio Ujihara donated this watercolor along with others, this particular painting was done by Toshio Asaeda.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1943
producer
Asaeda, Toshio
maker
Asaeda, Toshio
ID Number
1986.3047.01
catalog number
1986.3047.01
nonaccession number
1986.3047

Meissen cup and saucer

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2¾" 7cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2¾" 7cm; Saucer: D. 6¾" 13.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE:
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.25 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 202
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; cross in gold; “24” impressed on cup; “//” incised on saucer.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
This cup and 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 cup and saucer feature overglaze enamel painted figures from the French adaptation of the Italian Comedy. On the saucer a couple stand before a parkland setting, and on the cup a young woman dances in a similar landscape watched by the partly concealed figure of a man to her left. On the reverse of the cup one figure plays a guitar and sings while the other hides in the bushes, probably the characters Scaramouche and Scapin, again from the Italian Comedy which was a highly popular comedic form across the social classes.
In the work of French artist Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) we see the development of the fêtes galantes based on the outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol. Watteau’s works depicted conversational, theatrical, and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, and they struck a chord with living protagonists.
Numerous engravings were printed after works by Antoine Watteau, and in the early 1740s the Meissen manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the painters based their “Watteauszenen” (Watteau scenes). These subjects became so much in demand that eleven enamel painters were appointed to specialize in work from these sources.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, with staffage (figures and animals) and Watteau scenes 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. The gold scrollwork on the interior of the cup and saucer was the work of another specialist in the painting division.
On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.
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. 338-339.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1750
1740-1750
19th century?
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.25ab
catalog number
1987.0896.25ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
202

Meissen plate

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D. 10" 25.4cmOBJECT 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. 10" 25.4cm
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: 1983.0565.25
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 623
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “/” incised; “67” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: H. Bachrach, London, England, 1947.
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, modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler, has a petal-shaped edge with a brown rim line and floral sprays painted in the Japanese Kakiemon style. In the center of the plate a butterfly rests on a flowering branch in a pattern influenced by Chinese famille verte onglaze and underglaze enamel painting of the K’ang Hsi period (1662-1722); famille verte refers to the group of Chinese porcelains with a color palette dominated by translucent emerald green enamel pigments. Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1670-1733), collected a large amount of famille verte porcelain from China, and another Meissen pattern, the “hawk” (see ID# 1983.0565.33), was based also on this family of Chinese porcelains.
The onglaze enamel painted design on the plate is an example of the Meissen Manufactory’s use of motifs with both Japanese and Chinese origins, and the pattern was intitially in production for the Parisian dealer Rodolphe Lemaire in 1730. Following exposure of Lemaire’s and Count Hoym’s fraudulent activities the pattern was used on services made for the Saxon court; an inventory of the Hubertusburg Royal Saxon Hunting Lodge lists a large service “painted with a butterfly and with a wavy rim.” The lodge was used by Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1696-1763) not just for hunting in the surrounding forests, but also for lavish court banquets and entertainment. A tureen with the same pattern and with handles modeled in the shape of wild boar heads can be seen in the digital collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O333593/tureen-meissen-porcelain-factory/
On the Hoym-Lemaire affair see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band I, and for more details and further examples of this pattern see Band II, S. 344-356.
On Chinese famille verte see Valenstein S.G., 1975 (1989) A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, pp.227-236.
For three Meissen pieces with the same pattern see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 252-253.
On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 168-169.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.25
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.25
collector/donor number
623

Gustave Courbet

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Lemercier & Cie
ID Number
1983.0838.0056
accession number
1983.0838
catalog number
1983.0838.56

Meissen cup and saucer

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H.2¾" 7cm; Saucer: L. 5½" 14cm, W.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H.2¾" 7cm; Saucer: L. 5½" 14cm, W. 4¾" 12.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE:
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.47a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 40 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “3” impressed on saucer; “44” in purple on cup.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
This cup and 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 cup and saucer of quatrefoil shape have Watteau scenes painted in overglaze enamels on white panels alternating with German flowers (deutsche Blumen) painted on panels with a sea-green ground. Figures of couples in landscapes decorate the saucer, and on the cup they represent characters from the French adaptation of the Italian Comedy that was highly popular at the Paris city fairs.
In the work of French artist Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) we see the development of the fêtes galantes based on the outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol. Watteau’s works depicted conversational, theatrical, and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, and they struck a chord with living protagonists.
In the early 1740s the manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the Meissen painters based their “Watteauszenen” (Watteau scenes), and they became so much in demand that eleven painters were appointed to specialize in work based on these sources.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, with staffage (figures and animals) and Watteau scenes 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.
The gold ornament on the cup and saucer was the work of another specialist in the manufactory’s painting division.
This type of cup and saucer with similar decorative motifs is associated with the porcelain painter Helena Wolfsohn, who had a studio in Dresden from 1843-1878 next to her store where she sold porcelain, glass, ivories, and fans, among other small luxury articles. The studio took in blanks or seconds (imperfect wares rejected by porcelain manufactories) and decorated them in the style of eighteenth-century products using the mark D under a crown to identify the work with the city of Dresden – there were many other porcelain painters operating in Dresden at the time and marks can be confusing. It is not difficult, however, to distinguish Wolfsohn’s enamel painting from the eighteenth-century originals.
On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.
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. 342-343.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1745
1745
1745?
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.47ab
catalog number
1983.0565.47ab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
40

Meissen cup and saucer

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucer: D. 5" 12.8cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1725-1730
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.30 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 50 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “//” incised on cup.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
This cup and 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 onglaze enamel pattern painted on this simple cup and saucer was adapted by Meissen painters from a Japanese prototype in the Dresden royal collection. Known as the “rock and chrysanthemum” pattern it has, typically, a branch of heavy chrysanthemum blooms arching upwards from behind a rock with grasses and ferns around it. Animating the composition on the saucer is a colorful bird. Japanese painters of the Edo period were highly sensitive observers of nature, but in the porcelains exported to Europe the laws of natural growth were often abandoned in the interests of making the product more attractive to European sensibilities, largely under the influence of Dutch traders.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
For a detailed account of the Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the Fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750. See also Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection and Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
For more examples and details about this pattern and its variations see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 208-220.
For a similar design on an octagonal-shaped two-handled cup and a saucer see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.302.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 178-179.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1725-1730
1725-1730
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.30ab
catalog number
1983.0565.30ab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
50ab

Meissen cup and saucer: one of a pair

TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucersMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cups: H. 2¾" 7cm; Saucers: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucers
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cups: H. 2¾" 7cm; Saucers: D. 5¼" 13.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Pair of cups and saucers
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1745
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.57 Aab, Bab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 152 Aab, Bab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “P” impressed on saucer; “63” impressed on saucer.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
This pair of cups and saucers comes 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.
Elaborate gold cartouches frame finely painted purple overglaze battle scenes between European and Ottoman military. On the saucers the cartouche frames the same subject. Many of the Meissen battle scenes were based on engravings after the work of battle scene painters Georg Philipp Rugendas the Elder (1666-1742)and August Querfurth (1696-1761), among many other artists who documented the cavalry battles and skirmishes fought on European soil in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The subjects on these cups and saucers are attributed to engravings after Rugendas. In 1683 following a two month siege of the city of Vienna, Habsburg armies forced the Ottoman military into retreat, but the threat to Central and Eastern Europe from the Ottoman Empire remained vivid in the European imagination, and there were still many more conflicts ahead. There was still a strong sense of the topicality of these subjects which explains its presence on these cups and saucers. The enamel and gold painting is in good condition which suggests the items were displayed and not put to use.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor scenes, and battle scenes 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. Gold painting was the responsibility of another painter specializing in this form of decoration.
The coffee cups and saucers are of the same pattern as the tea cup ID# 1983.0565.58ab. Although not from the same service which has a different pattern of gold decoration, compare the cups and saucers with the coffeepot (ID number 1983.0565.57 a,b).
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 subject of war in printmaking see James Clifton, Leslie M. Scatone, Ermine Fetvaci, 2009, The Plains of Mars: European War Prints 1500-1825.
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. 328-329.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1745
1740-1745
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.45Aab
catalog number
1983.0565.45Aab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
152a

Meissen two-handled cup and saucer

TITLE: Meissen two-handled cup with saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen two-handled cup with saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucer: D. 4½" 11.4 cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730-1735
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.24 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 627 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue “//” incised.
PURCHASED FROM: H. Bachrach, London, England, 1947.
This cup and 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 octagonal-shaped cup and saucer feature onglaze enamel painting in the Kakiemon style. On the saucer a so-called “phoenix” flies above stems of chrysanthemums in flower. The “phoenix’ in Chinese and Japanese mythology is not the same as the bird that renews itself in fire according to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures. The Chinese feng-huang and the Japanese hō-ō bird represent benevolence and wisdom, inhabiting the air and alighting on earth only at times of harmony and stability. Phoenix was a name chosen to represent the mythical bird by western observers and scholars of Chinese and Japanese cultures because of its superficial similarity to the fire bird or phoenix.
Introduced to Japan from China during the Nara period (710-784) the chrysanthemum (kiku) became a popular decorative device on Japanese lacquer wares, textiles, and porcelain, assuming in Japan more symbolic importance than the peony in China. It is the symbol for the imperial family of Japan and chrysanthemum motifs decorate numerous consumer products today.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon.
In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
For a detailed account of the Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; see also Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection; Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 168-169.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1735
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.24ab
catalog number
1983.0565.24ab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
627ab

Hair Wreath

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1890
ID Number
1983.0080.1
accession number
1983.0080
catalog number
1983.0080.1

Meissen covered bowl and stand

TITLE: Meissen covered bowl and standMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Bowl and cover: H. 5" 12.8 cm; Stand: d.
Description
TITLE: Meissen covered bowl and stand
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Bowl and cover: H. 5" 12.8 cm; Stand: d. 9" 22.9cm
OBJECT NAME: Bowl and stand
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745-1750
SUBJECT:
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.18 a,b,c
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 258
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed on stand; “9” or “6” impressed on bowl.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
This covered bowl and stand 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 bowl and stand was probably used to serve hot broth. Painted in overglaze polychrome enamels the subjects are in the style of the Flemish painter David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690), the most successful of the seventeenth-century family of painters who specialized in subjects of peasant life, although not exclusively so. Teniers began his career painting interior subjects but later focused on outdoor scenes of rural celebrations in which farm laborers play, sing, and dance while others watch, eat, and drink. These subjects appealed to the European elites, who enjoyed on the one hand the vicarious pleasure of what they imagined to be an idyllic existence in rural communities removed from city and court life, and on the other a mixture of amusement, curiosity and contempt for the large numbers of rural poor on the lower levels of the social pyramid. On the cover a group of children dance and a man drinks in front of a woman and child. On the bowl a woman with a distaff in her hand sits beside a shepherd, and on the reverse side a shepherd cares for his flock beside his hut. On the saucer the scenes show a man playing the bagpipes while a couple dance, and a man plays a wind instrument on an upturned barrel with a couple standing nearby. All the figures are placed in riverside landscapes. Meissen accumulated a large collection of prints after the works of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish artists whose popularity endured through the eighteenth century.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes and subjects with figures 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.
Ornamental gold painting and polishing was the work of other specialists in the manufactory’s painting division.
On Teniers see Hans Vlieghe’s biography David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690), 2011.
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. 314-315.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1745-1750
1745-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.18abc
catalog number
1987.0896.18abc
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
258

Meissen plate

TITLE: Meissen plate (Coronation service)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate (Coronation service)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 8¾" 22.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1733-1734
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing1983.0565.42
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.42
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1514
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “N=147/W” engraved (Johanneum mark).
PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1966.
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 service to which this plate belongs, known since the nineteenth century as the Coronation Service, was probably commissioned soon after the death in 1733 of Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II, in anticipation of his son’s succession and coronation in Krakow, Poland, the following year. The coat of arms represents the union of Saxony, Poland and Lithuania and the complete service may have formed a display or ‘buffet’ in the manner of gold or silver plate at the coronation of Augustus III at Wawel Castle in Krakow in 1734, especially as some of the dishes made were unusually large. On such an important royal occasion the new king and his guests would eat from a silver service rather than porcelain.
Surrounding the coat of arms framed by a cartouche in Böttger luster and gold surmounted by a royal crown are scattered enamel painted Kakiemon flowers and rice-sheaves. An elaborate border of lozenges, leaf and strap work (Laub und Bandelwerk) painted in gold surrounds the rim of the plate which has no foot ring on the underside, instead the center is sunken in the manner of Chinese plates of the eighteenth century and other plates from this service have the same atypical form. Recorded in the 1779 inventory in Dresden the service numbered 77 pieces in total of which 37 were plates.
For more examples of this service see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 96-97; 277-278; Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 459.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 286-287.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1735
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.42
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.42
collector/donor number
1514

Meissen plate

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D. 8¾" 22.3cmOBJECT NAME: PlatePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1735SUBJECT: ArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry and ManufacturingCREDIT LINE: Hans C.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 8¾" 22.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.33
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1230
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords and “K” in underglaze blue (painter’s mark).
PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1962.
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.
This plate, decorated in the Chinese Imari style after a Chinese prototype, is painted in underglaze blue and onglaze enamels with the “bough” or “branch” pattern (Astmuster). The twisted branches carry stylized peony and chrysanthemum blossoms with a butterfly hovering above the branches. The foliate border on the edge of the plate, painted in iron-red, is interrupted with four flowers painted in pale green.
Chinese porcelain production in the manufacturing center of Jingdezhen was thrown into disarray when civil unrest followed the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Qing in 1644. The Dutch East India Company turned to Japan where the production of exceptionally fine porcelain was well received in Europe. The Chinese re-entered the export market in the late seventeenth century and by the early 1700s Chinese porcelain painters were imitating Japanese Imari wares for the European and Asiatic trade. With a much smaller manufacturing base Japan could not compete when China began to produce imitations of Japanese Imari wares for which there was a high demand in Europe. By the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese porcelains were not equally competitive in quantity or price.
Examples of the Chinese Imari patterns entered the collection of the Saxon Elector and King of Poland, Augustus II, and were made available to the Meissen Manufactory as models for production.
Original Japanese Imari collected by the European aristocracy was much admired for its opulent decorative style. Further competition to Japanese Imari production emerged later in the eighteenth century as the style gained in popularity in Europe. Today, the manufactories of English Worcester, Royal Crown Derby, and Derby porcelain continue to produce a derivative pattern called Traditional Imari.
For a similar plate alongside the Chinese prototype in the Dresden collection see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, p. 248. See also Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 258; Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 60-64.
On the Imari style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750. See also: Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection; Goro Shimura, 2008, The Story of Imari: the Symbols and Mysteries of antique Japanese Porcelain.
On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 210-211.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1725-1730
1725-1730
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.33
catalog number
1984.1140.33
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
1230

Christ Before Pilate

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Bierstadt, Edward
ID Number
1983.0838.0034
accession number
1983.0838
catalog number
1983.0838.34

Meissen cup and saucer

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucer: D. 5¼" 13.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.36 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1256 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “53 impressed on cup; “P” impressed on saucer.
PURCHASED FROM: A. Neuberger, New York, 1962.
This cup and 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 cup and saucer have flowering prunus in relief on their exterior surfaces, and this type of decoration revived in the 1740s, is reminiscent of the early Böttger porcelains with similar ornament based on Chinese Dehua (blanc de Chine) porcelains with the prunus branches in high relief; prototypes with this pattern were in the royal collections in Dresden and made available to Johann Friedrich Böttger as models for early Meissen porcelain. In 1745 Johann Joachim Kaendler revived some of the patterns from the first decade of Meissen’s production that were, like this pattern, particularly admired. For an example of a similar cup and saucer, but with a yellow ground, enamel-painted chinoiseries and gilding see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 450, with on p. 451 a white teapot made at about the same date with prunus blossoms in relief.
The motif of the flowering prunus came from Chinese sources where fruit trees depicted in late winter and early spring bloom symbolize resilience and rebirth after winter and are the harbingers of spring.
The manufactory employed “mechanics” (Mechaniker), men who could maintain and oversee the use of machinery for the processing of materials, but also invent tools and devices that extended and supported the skills of mold makers and turners, ensuring a standard in uniformity and quality in the production of table services in particular. Most of Meissen’s vessels were made in plaster of Paris molds rotated on a wheel with the turner (Dreher) using a template or profile to guide the shape to an even thickness so as to avoid distortion in the firing. Oval forms were made using machines designed to carry a profile that followed an eccentric movement guided by a jig. All wares were turned in rough form and the porcelain allowed to air dry until it could hold its own shape before refining the surface with iron turning tools, smoothing away blemishes with a sponge, and polishing with a small piece of ivory or horn: all these mechanical devices and tools were made in the manufactory, sometimes improved upon and made by workers themselves. (See Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 100).
On blanc de Chine in the Hickley Collection, Singapore, see Kerr, R., and Ayers, J., 2002, Blanc de Chine Porcelain from Dehua, and especially the contribution by Eva Ströber, “Dehua Porcelain in the Collection of Augustus the Strong in Dresden.”
For evidence of the Meissen Manufactory’s technical workers the methods employed see Rückert, R. 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 220-221.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1750
1740-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.36ab
catalog number
1984.1140.36ab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
1256ab

Meissen tea bowl and saucer

TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D. 4⅝" 11.8cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735-1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.32ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1135ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; three small circles impressed on cup, possibly the former Gottfried Seydel (or Seidel); two six-pointed stars incised on saucer attributable to the former Christian Meynert (Meinert).
PURCHASED FROM: The Art Exchange, New York, 1960.
This tea bowl and 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.
Painted in the Japanese Imari style the tea bowl and saucer have panels of purple luster with a gold diaper brocade pattern and chrysanthemum emblem alternating with white panels featuring prunus trees in flower and field chrysanthemums. The chrysanthemum emblem with its sixteen petals resembles the Japanese Imperial seal still common to many decorative items produced in contemporary Japan. Encircling a larger chrysanthemum motif in the center of the saucer is an iron-red band with a floral and foliate design left in white, and the same band encircles the interior rim of the tea bowl.
Japanese Imari wares came from kilns near the town of Arita in the north-western region of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island, and were exported by the Dutch through the port of Imari from their trading base on the island of Dejima. Decorated in the Aka-e-machi, the enameling center in Arita, Imari wares are generally distinguished from those made in the Kakiemon style by the darker palette of enamel colors and densely patterned surfaces, some of which are clearly derived from Japanese and South-East Asian textiles and known in Japan as brocade ware (nishiki-de), but there are considerable variations within this broad outline. Unlike the Kakiemon style a high proportion of Japanese Imari wares combined underglaze blue painting with overglaze enamel colors.
Original Japanese Imari collected by the European aristocracy was much admired for its opulent decorative style. The Saxon Elector and King of Poland, Augustus II, held examples in his porcelain collection at the Japanese Palace in Dresden, and the Meissen Manufactory produced designs that were very close imitations of the Japanese originals, or independent designs based on Japanese and Chinese prototypes. When no longer imported to Europe imitations of the Imari style gained wider popularity later in the eighteenth century, most notably in the products of the English Worcester and Derby porcelain manufactorie. Royal Crown Derby continues to produce a derivative pattern called Traditional Imari today.
For a detailed account of the Imari style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750.See also Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon; Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection; Goro Shimura, 2008, The Story of Imari: the Symbols and Mysteries of antique Japanese Porcelain.
On Gottfried Seydel see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 129; on Christian Meinert see p.121.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 198-199.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1735-1740
1735-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.32ab
catalog number
1984.1140.32ab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
1135ab

Camille Corot

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
depicted (sitter)
Corot, Camille-Jean-Baptiste
ID Number
1983.0838.0067
accession number
1983.0838
catalog number
1983.0838.67

Meissen tea bowl and saucer

TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅛" 5.4cm; D: 5⅝" 14.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730-1735
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.34ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1232ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords and “K” in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1962.
This tea bowl and 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 tea bowl and saucer are fluted, but otherwise simple in their form. Decorated in underglaze blue, onglaze iron-red, and gold, the pattern is in the Japanese Imari style, but bears similarity to the Chinese Imari imitations after the Japanese originals that entered production in China in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A flower vase in the center of the saucer, a common motif in Imari designs, is encircled by a wide band with boughs of chrysanthemums, camelias and peonies. Flowers extend their stems outside the circle and around the exterior of the tea bowl.
Japan traded Arita porcelains to the Dutch during the second half of the seventeenth century when Chinese porcelain production at the manufacturing center of Jingdezhen ceased following the turmoil that occurred on the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644. Once production in Jingdezhen resumed no time was lost in challenging the Japanese market with less expensive Chinese imitations in the Imari style, so much so that the Japanese trade more or less collapsed in the middle of the eighteenth century. The Saxon Elector and King of Poland, Augustus II, held examples of Japanese and Chinese Imari in his porcelain collection at the Japanese Palace in Dresden, and the Meissen Manufactory produced designs that were very close imitations of East Asian originals, or independent designs based on Chinese and Japanese prototypes. Augustus obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
On Japanese Imari porcelain and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, pp.233-238. See also Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 244-260.
For a similar saucer to the one seen here and for more details on this type of pattern see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 93-94.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 192-193.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1735
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.34ab
catalog number
1984.1140.34ab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
1232ab

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