Domestic Furnishings

Washboards, armchairs, lamps, and pots and pans may not seem to be museum pieces. But they are invaluable evidence of how most people lived day to day, last week or three centuries ago. The Museum's collections of domestic furnishings comprise more than 40,000 artifacts from American households. Large and small, they include four houses, roughly 800 pieces of furniture, fireplace equipment, spinning wheels, ceramics and glass, family portraits, and much more.

The Arthur and Edna Greenwood Collection contains more than 2,000 objects from New England households from colonial times to mid-1800s. From kitchens of the past, the collections hold some 3,300 artifacts, ranging from refrigerators to spatulas. The lighting devices alone number roughly 3,000 lamps, candleholders, and lanterns.

MARKS: Crossed swrods in underglaze blue; "17" impressed.PURCHASED FROM: M.J.Ullmann, New York, 1948.This coffeepot is part of the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr.
Description
MARKS: Crossed swrods in underglaze blue; "17" impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: M.J.Ullmann, New York, 1948.
This coffeepot is part of 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 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.
This pear-shaped coffeepot, reminiscent of metal prototypes, has a wishbone handle with a domed lid that has a pine kernel on the top. The insects and flowers painted on the pot are in the style of prints published after the original botanical and insect studies by the Flemish artist Joris (Georg) Hoefnagel (1542-1601). Joris Hoefnagel, who became court painter to the Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, employed his nineteen year old son Jacob to engrave the plates for the publication in 1592 of the Archetypa Studiaque Patris Georgii Hoefnagelii. After his father’s death Jacob Hoefnagel succeeded him as court painter to Rudolf II.
Prints after the Hoefnagel originals were so much in demand among artists and craftworkers, that the Nuremberg publishers purchased the copperplates and produced several further editions in the seventeenth century. The Nuremberg printmaker and publisher, Christoph Weigel (1654-1725), produced another edition in the early eighteenth century, which explains why a visual source from the late sixteenth century appears on Meissen porcelain nearly one hundred and fifty years later. (See Cassidy-Geiger, M., Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain, in Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 31, 1996, pp.99-126). However, when this coffeepot was made in 1740 the Hoefnagel style of trompe l’oeil was about to give way to the fashion for painting sprays of German flowers (deutsche blumen) on Meissen porcelain. This development indicated the beginnings of a preference for decorative motifs with local significance that struck a chord with an awakening sense of German national identity. By 1740, when this coffee pot was made, Meissen had a large, well-trained painting staff run by Johann Gregor Höroldt. Painters tended to specialize in figurative subjects, fruits and flowers, birds and animals, battle scenes, landscapes, harbor scenes, all of which were part of the repertoire by the middle of the eighteenth century. This coffeepot made in 1740 marks the transition from early modern sources of imagery to contemporary sources.
The seventeenth and eighteenth century expansion in the manufacture of consumer goods made more desirable and fashionable with ornamentation promoted the production of printed images and pattern books to which artisans could refer for their designs. The manufacturers of ceramics and printed textiles, interior painters and wallpaper makers, furniture makers, and embroiderers made use of these sources for surface decoration. When available, undecorated porcelain was taken into the workshops of professional enamel painters, the so-called Hausmaler or home painters. Amateur enamellers also painted white porcelain when they could acquire some.
On the history of the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate to Europe see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850.
On ornament see Snodin, M.,Howard, M., 1996, Ornament: A Social History Since 1450, especially the chapter “Ornament and the Printed Image”.
Syz, H., Rückert, R., Miller, J. J. II., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 358-359.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.49
collector/donor number
797
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.49
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date produced
c.1950
date made
c.1950s
designer
Kogan, Belle
maker
Hull
ID Number
1992.0257.13.ab
accession number
1992.0257
catalog number
1992.0257.13ab
Oval baluster-shaped coffeepot with domed oval, hinged lid topped by a cast oval medallion knop on a flared oval pedestal base; lower body is engraved on one side with a lengthy inscription presenting service from "The Parish of Whittingham & Neighbourhood" to "Mr.
Description
Oval baluster-shaped coffeepot with domed oval, hinged lid topped by a cast oval medallion knop on a flared oval pedestal base; lower body is engraved on one side with a lengthy inscription presenting service from "The Parish of Whittingham & Neighbourhood" to "Mr. Joshua Crea" for his "Services as their Surgeon". Applied cast gadrooning punctuated by acanthus-framed shells and anthemions is at edge of stepped-ogee shoulder atop the seamed, incurved neck; ribbing around base. Spurred acanthus-topped, ear-shaped handle, rectangular in section, is pinned into thin insulators with an acanthus volute upper socket and tapered rectangular lower socket. Bellied S-curve spout has flat inside face and D-shaped, cyma-notched lip. Body perforated at spout. Six hallmarks are struck to right of handle. Part of a seven-piece service (including a padded urn cover or cozy), DL*66.0537A-G.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1818 - 1819
presentation date
1819-01-01
ID Number
DL.66.0537B
catalog number
66.0537B
accession number
265238
TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H. 8¼" 21cmOBJECT NAME: CoffeepotPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: ca.
Description
TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 8¼" 21cm
OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 74.133ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 421ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “yy” impressed (former’s mark).
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
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.
This small coffeepot has a yellow onglaze ground with white reserves on the pot and the cover, which has a finial in the form of an artichoke. In the reserves the onglaze enamel painted subjects on the pot are of harbor scenes depicting merchants conducting business while laborers wait for their orders; on the cover a man sails a small craft on the river, and a woman with a large basket on her back approaches the sea shore.
Sources for enamel painted harbor and waterside scenes came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1720s 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), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640). Printed images enriched people’s lives and a series of prints might take the viewer on a journey, real or imaginary. Prints performed a role in European and American visual culture later extended by photography and film, and they provided artisans and artists with images, motifs, and patterns used in many branches of the applied arts.
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. On-glaze gold decoration was the work of specialist gold painters and polishers, and so was the painting of the so-called “Indian flowers” (indianische Blumen) seen on the yellow ground outside the reserves.
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, and on colored grounds pp. 267-274.
On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
On Dutch prints see Goddard, S.H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 116-117.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.74.133ab
catalog number
74.133ab
accession number
315259
collector/donor number
421ab
Gold washed, elongated ovoid coffeepot with domed, hinged lid topped by ball knop on four, double-banded, splayed legs ending in pad feet.
Description
Gold washed, elongated ovoid coffeepot with domed, hinged lid topped by ball knop on four, double-banded, splayed legs ending in pad feet. Four repousse chased panels filled with a myriad of flowers and foliage cover body; matching floral designs interrupted by an empty C-scroll reserve are on lid. Hollow, angular handle with ball thumbrest has banded, tapered ends pinned into ivory insulators with a faceted upper socket and bracketed lower socket with rosette. Body perforated at S-curve spout. Bottom underside struck incuse "MF'D & PLATED BY / REED & BARTON", "2795", "PATENT APPLIED FOR" and "7". From a six-piece coffee and tea service, 1978.0922.01-.06.
Maker is Reed & Barton, Taunton, MA; 1840-present. William C. Beattie of Taunton, MA, assignor to Reed & Barton, received US Design No. 9,405 for this pattern on July 25, 1876.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1876 or later
design patent date
1876-07-25
ID Number
1978.0922.02
catalog number
1978.0922.02
accession number
1978.0922
Baluster-shaped coffeepot on flared circular base with scored and molded decoration around rim, neck, belly, and base. High-domed, incised-edge, hinged lid is topped by wood disk knop.
Description
Baluster-shaped coffeepot on flared circular base with scored and molded decoration around rim, neck, belly, and base. High-domed, incised-edge, hinged lid is topped by wood disk knop. S- and C-curve, D- or ear-shaped handle with crescent thumbrest is pinned into cylindrical sockets. Body perforated at plain, S-curve spout with split lip. Underside of inset flat bottom struck incuse with circular touch mark of "A. GRISWOLD" with spreadwing eagle, body facing right and head turned left.
Maker is Ashbil (or Ashbel) Griswold (1784-1853); working, circa 1802-1842. Trained with Thomas Danforth III as a pewterer; opened a shop in Meriden in 1808 and expanded into producing britannia wares at an early date, establishing Meriden as a major manufacturing center of pewter, britannia and plated goods. Was one of the founding partners of the Meriden Britannia Co. in 1852.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1820 - 1840
ca 1820-1840
ID Number
DL.391781
catalog number
391781
accession number
71679
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Enoch Wood and Sons
ID Number
CE.62.876ab
catalog number
62.876ab
accession number
171126
Two-part conical pot with a tapered, crooked spout reinforced by a scroll-ended, curved strap support. Body is made of two cones attached at their tips; smaller top is covered by a low-domed, hinged lid with overhanging plain edge topped by an oval strap handle.
Description
Two-part conical pot with a tapered, crooked spout reinforced by a scroll-ended, curved strap support. Body is made of two cones attached at their tips; smaller top is covered by a low-domed, hinged lid with overhanging plain edge topped by an oval strap handle. Soft-soldered lapped seams. Flat bottom with folded edges. No marks.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
late 19th century
ID Number
DL.257491.0005
catalog number
257491.0005
accession number
257491
Baluster-shaped coffeepot with tall incurved neck and double-domed, hinged lid topped by a cast grape cluster on an incurved pedestal base with domed circular foot.
Description
Baluster-shaped coffeepot with tall incurved neck and double-domed, hinged lid topped by a cast grape cluster on an incurved pedestal base with domed circular foot. Applied bands of fasces at rim and laurel leaves at bottom of neck; beading at lid and top and bottom of neck and of base. Additional cast grape clusters and leaves adorn the bases of the S-curve spout and C-curve handle pinned into thin insulators. Body perforated at spout. Maker's mark struck on underside of foot and pattern number and capacity mark on underside of rounded bottom; all marks in incuse serif letters.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1900
ID Number
1977.0918.64
accession number
1977.0918
catalog number
1977.0918.64
TITLE: Meissen coffee pot and cover from a tête à tête tea and coffee serviceMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 1 5/8 in x 15 3/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 4.1275 cm x 40.005 cm x 26.035 cmOBJECT NAME: TrayPLACE MA
Description
TITLE: Meissen coffee pot and cover from a tête à tête tea and coffee service
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 1 5/8 in x 15 3/4 in x 10 1/4 in; 4.1275 cm x 40.005 cm x 26.035 cm
OBJECT NAME: Tray
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1805-1815
SUBJECT: The Alfred Duane Pell Collection
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: The Alfred Duane Pell Collection
ID NUMBER: CE*P-896A
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: Alfred Duane Pell
ACCESSION NUMBER: 225282
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords and a star in underglaze blue .
This coffee pot is from a Meissen tea and coffee service made for two people, and services of this kind for use at breakfast or for intimate meetings are known as têtê à têtê or cabaret services. Most interesting, however, are the enamel painted topographical images of Egyptian landscapes and antiquities, which date the service to the early nineteenth century after the publication of Baron Dominique Vivant Denon’s Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte (Travels in Lower and Upper Egypt) in 1802.
In 1798 Denon traveled to Egypt as a member of Napoleon’s large team of scientists, engineers, artists, and scholars appended to the general’s army of about 20,000 troops who occupied Lower Egypt and chased the Mamluk Turks, then rulers of the country, into Upper Egypt. Known as the savants, these men studied and recorded all that they saw of both ancient and modern Egypt. As an artist, art collector, and antiquarian, Denon marveled at the sites of Egyptian antiquity and recorded in drawings everything that he could get down on paper while traveling with a battalion of the French army into Upper Egypt. His drawings, later engraved and published in the Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte are still a valuable record of Egypt’s ancient sites before the archaeological excavations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the construction of the first and second Aswan Dams.
Napoleon’s campaign was not a military success, his fleet destroyed by the British at the Battle of Abū Qīr Bay near Alexandria on August 1, 1798, thus isolating the French army on land in Egypt and restoring British control over the Mediterranean Sea. His team of scientists, engineers and artists, however, were undoubtedly successful in bringing new knowledge of ancient Egypt to Europe and America. Denon’s Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte was a very successful publication and the spirited account of his experiences was soon translated into English and other languages. It is likely that the enamel paintings on this tea and coffee service were commissioned privately by someone who perhaps owned a copy of the Voyage. When compared with the original drawings there are differences in detail and composition, which was not unusual, but for the most part the Meissen painters were faithful to Denon’s record, which was not in color, unlike the rich polychrome enamels seen on the tea and coffee service.
The parts of the service are molded in the severe, but nevertheless ornate, neoclassical style fashionable in designs of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. With its origins in France artists and designers who worked in the neoclassical style took inspiration from ancient Roman and Greek art and architecture. Neoclassicism in its most ideologically pure form expressed a taste for elevated, didactic, and moral subjects in rejection of the court culture of the old regime prior to the French Revolution. In the German States, and especially in Berlin, the neoclassical style was favored by designers and architects.
On one side of the coffee pot we see the Pyramids of Giza, and on the other side the Temple of Thoth at the Graeco-Roman city of Hermopolis Magna (Great City of Hermes, so-called because the Greeks identified the Egyptian god Thoth with Hermes, or Mercury in the Roman pantheon: present day El Ashmunein / Al Ashmunin). The temple was of Egyptian origin, and it is a good example of Denon's invaluable record of ancient sites before their destruction. In 1825 or 1826 the remaining portico and columns were destroyed and burned in order to acquire lime, presumably for construction purposes. In his Voyage Denon wrote:
"...this was the first monument which gave me an idea of the ancient Egyptian architecture; the first stones that I had seen which had preserved their original destination, without being altered or deformed by the works of modern times, and had remained untouched for four thousand years, to give me an idea of the immense range and high perfection to which the arts had arrived in this country."
This service belongs to the Alfred Duane Pell collection in the National Museum of American History. Before Pell (1864-1924) became an Episcopalian clergyman quite late in life, he and his wife Cornelia Livingstone Crosby Pell (1861-1938) travelled widely, and as they travelled they collected European porcelains, silver, and furniture. Pell came from a wealthy family and he purchased the large William Pickhardt Mansion on 5th Avenue and East 74th Street in which to display his vast collection. The Smithsonian was one of several institutions to receive substantial bequests from the Reverend Pell which laid the foundation for their collections of European applied arts.
Bob Brier, Napoleon in Egypt, exhibition catalog Hillwood Art Museum, Brookville, New York: 1990.
Bob Brier, Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
James Stevens Curl, Egyptomania, the Egyptian Revival: a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Egyptomania: Egypt in Western Art 1730-1930, exhibition catalog, National Gallery of Canada with the Louvre, Paris, 1994.
Paul V. Gardner, 1956, 1966 (rev. ed.), Meissen and other German Porcelain in the Alfred Duane Pell Collection.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1805-1815
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-896Cab
catalog number
P-896Cab
accession number
225282
Ovoid octagonal or panel-sided coffeepot on four cast, scrolled feet with conforming, flared, hinged lid topped by rosette knop; spurred, D- or ear-shaped handle with scrolled sockets on stepped oval attachments; and cast, scroll-decorated S-curve spout with split lip.
Description
Ovoid octagonal or panel-sided coffeepot on four cast, scrolled feet with conforming, flared, hinged lid topped by rosette knop; spurred, D- or ear-shaped handle with scrolled sockets on stepped oval attachments; and cast, scroll-decorated S-curve spout with split lip. Body perforated at spout. Knop and handle japanned black. Concave bottom has rectangular mark on inside and is stamped incuse on underside with maker's and pattern marks.
Maker is Smith & Feltman of Albany, NY (1849-1852); specialized in Britannia wares.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1849-1852
ID Number
DL.311713
catalog number
311713
accession number
64443
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Enoch Wood and Sons
ID Number
CE.62.874Bab
catalog number
62.874Bab
accession number
171126
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
1989.0168.01
catalog number
1989.0168.01
accession number
1989.0168
Urn-shaped coffeepot, oval in section, on flared pedestal base with trumpet-shaped, hinged oval lid topped by a cast urn; one side of body is engraved with a shaded, foliate script "R".
Description
Urn-shaped coffeepot, oval in section, on flared pedestal base with trumpet-shaped, hinged oval lid topped by a cast urn; one side of body is engraved with a shaded, foliate script "R". Cast serpentine-lobed rim and reeded foot have leafy volutes springing from shells; chased and engraved pairs of leafy scrolls enclosing five-petaled flowers encircle incurved neck, body and base. Tight C-curve handle is pinned into thin, reeded ivory insulators and flared sockets. Body perforated at shallow S-curve spout. Underside of base struck incuse "STERLING" at one end, "3998/74" at the other, and with a diamond-quatrefoil-diamond motif along one side. From a seven-piece coffee and tea service, 1991.0352.01-.07.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1914
date presented
1914-02-22
ID Number
1991.0352.01
catalog number
1991.0352.01
accession number
1991.0352
catalog number
1991.0352.01-07
"Ultra" pattern coffeepot; features a large, inverted ovoid body with conical, hinged lid topped by an ovoid knop on a short, fluted pedestal with conical base; two, low-relief, vertical ears of wheat are applied to sides of body and knop.
Description
"Ultra" pattern coffeepot; features a large, inverted ovoid body with conical, hinged lid topped by an ovoid knop on a short, fluted pedestal with conical base; two, low-relief, vertical ears of wheat are applied to sides of body and knop. Hollow, C-curve handle is pinned into thin insulators and flared sockets. Body perforated at shallow, S-curve spout. Underside struck with maker's mark, pattern number and 7-cup capacity mark. From a five-piece coffee and tea service, 1989.0700.07-.11.
Greek-American industrial designer John Vassos (1898-1985) designed the "Ultra" pattern in 1934 for R. Wallace & Sons Mfg. Co. of Wallingford, CT; 1871-present. "Ultra" flatware 1989.0700.01-.06, five-piece coffee and tea service 1989.0700.07-.11, and bowl 1989.0700.12, all belonged to the Vassos family.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1934 or later
year pattern introduced
1934 or later
ID Number
1989.0700.07
catalog number
1989.0700.07
accession number
1989.0700
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1820
1825-1830
ID Number
CE.P-519Cab
catalog number
P-519Cab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Enoch Wood and Sons
ID Number
CE.62.880Dab
catalog number
62.880Dab
accession number
171126
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1890 - 1910
ID Number
DL.67.0366
catalog number
67.0366
accession number
263810
Plain, compressed globular coffeepot with equal-height, incurved neck and pedestal base and creased, tapered shoulder and underbelly. Wide-rimmed, bell-domed, hinged lid is topped by wood button knop.
Description
Plain, compressed globular coffeepot with equal-height, incurved neck and pedestal base and creased, tapered shoulder and underbelly. Wide-rimmed, bell-domed, hinged lid is topped by wood button knop. Black-japanned, spurred, S- and C-curve handle is pinned into leafy spiral sockets. S-scroll spout has angled D-shaped lip, flat face and rounded belly. Underside of flat bottom is struck "[J.] DANFO[RTH]" in rectangle and "N\o. 15" in sawtooth rectangle, both in roman letters.
Maker is Josiah Danforth (1803-1872) of Middletown, CT; working 1821-circa 1843.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1830 - 1837
ID Number
DL.391780
catalog number
391780
accession number
71679
Urn-shape coffeepot with tall, incurved neck, flared shoulder and tapered cylindrical body on flared and molded, circular pedestal base; base of neck and shoulder are scored. Tiered, high-domed, hinged lid with overhanging edge is topped by wood mushroom knop.
Description
Urn-shape coffeepot with tall, incurved neck, flared shoulder and tapered cylindrical body on flared and molded, circular pedestal base; base of neck and shoulder are scored. Tiered, high-domed, hinged lid with overhanging edge is topped by wood mushroom knop. Black-japanned, spurred C- and S-curve handle is pinned into cylindrical sockets. Body is perforated at plain S-scroll spout with split lip. Inset flat bottom has rectangular mark on inside and is struck incuse on underside "R. DUNHAM" in raised serif letters in a scalloped rectangle.
Maker is Rufus Dunham of Westbrook, Maine (1816-1893); working 1837-1860.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1837 - 1860
ID Number
1993.0217.18
catalog number
1993.0217.18
accession number
1993.0217
TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H. 7½" 19.1cmOBJECT NAME: CoffeepotPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: ca.
Description
TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 7½" 19.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1730-1735
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.03ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 892ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; incised cross.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1952.
This coffeepot is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began collecting 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 coffeepot and cover have white reserves in a dark blue underglaze ground featuring waterside scenes with on the one side of the pot a small vessel moored on a riverbank, and on the other a riverbank and landscape with two figures and two trees in the foreground. On the cover are two harbor scenes.
Sources for harbor scenes and waterside landscapes came from the large number of prints after paintings by Dutch masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1720s 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, but especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640). Printed images enriched people’s lives and a series of prints might take the viewer on a journey, real or imaginary. Prints performed a role in European visual culture later extended by photography and film, and they provided artisans and artists with images, motifs, and patterns applied in many branches of the applied arts.
In the eighteenth century tea, coffee, and chocolate was served in the private apartments of aristocratic women, usually in the company of other women, but also with male admirers and intimates present. In affluent middle-class households tea and coffee drinking was often the occasion for an informal family gathering. Coffee houses were almost exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
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. On-glaze gold decoration was the work of other specialists in this type of ornamentation.
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 history of coffee drinking see Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine:The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug
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. 114-115.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1735
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.03ab
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.03ab
collector/donor number
892ab
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1890 - 1910
ID Number
DL.67.0367
catalog number
67.0367
accession number
263810
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c. 1810-1815
ID Number
CE.P-574ab
catalog number
P-574ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1803
ID Number
CE.P-503Aab
catalog number
P-503Aab
accession number
225282

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