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.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca. 1820
ID Number
CE.P-576Fab
catalog number
P-576Fab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1811
ID Number
CE.P-582ab
catalog number
P-582ab
accession number
225282
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1¾ 4.5cm; Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1cm.OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucerPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: ca.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1¾ 4.5cm; Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1cm.
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.16ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 183ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “N” in iron-red; “44” impressed on cup; “66” impressed on saucer (former’s numbers).
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 white cup and saucer have onglaze enamel painted scenes of Dutch merchants and harbor workers engaged in loading or unloading goods and conducting business on the quayside. The harbor scenes of the seventeenth century represented to the Dutch their success in trade from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the Far East at a time when the Republic was the most prosperous seafaring nation in Europe. The popularity of these subjects extended into the eighteenth century, and introduced at Meissen in the 1720s these so-called Kauffahrtei remained in the manufactory’s repertoire 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 Dutch 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 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.
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. The gold rim lines were the work of another specialist in the painting division.
On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters see Möller, K. A., “’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on graphic originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 84-93.
On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 310-311.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.16ab
catalog number
1987.0896.16ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
183ab
TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucers (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cups: 1¾" 4.5 cmSaucers: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucers (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cups: 1¾" 4.5 cm
Saucers: D. 5" 12.8 cm
OBJECT NAME: Pair of cups and saucers
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735-1740, Meissen
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1979.0120.10/11 Aab,Bab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 59 Aab,Bab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “11” impressed on cup A; five-pointed star impressed on foot ring of saucers (former’s mark, possibly Gottfried Bergmann ca. 1709, d.1753).
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
This pair of cups and saucers are from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The cups and saucers were made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or even imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The two cups and saucers belong to the same tea service pattern as the rinsing bowl (ID number 1979.0120.12). The exteriors of the two cups have enamel painted flowers in the style of botanical illustration (Holzschnittblumen) placed between prunus blossoms in relief. The saucers contain images of a musician playing a harp and a woman with a shepherd’s crook held in her right hand and a wreath in her left, both in pastoral settings and painted in the mid-eighteenth century in the workshop of Franz Ferdinand Mayer of Pressnitz Bohemia (now Přísečnice in the Czech Republic).
The images painted on the saucers have an archaic style belonging to the seventeenth rather than the eighteenth century and may come from emblematic personifications representing contentment and care of the land. Like the manufactory painters Hausmaler used printed material as a source for their subjects, and it is not unusual to see images that originated in the print workshops of the previous century. In an age before copyright laws numerous pirated editions of prints, print series, and printed books circulated through the hands of artisans who depended on the printed image for ornamental patterns, and for subjects of interest to collectors and consumers.
Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers. Only the wealthy could afford to drink these beverages sweetened with sugar from silver or porcelain tea and coffee services. Many of the Meissen services were little used and have survived three hundred years because they were kept as items for decorative display in whole or in part. City dwellers drank coffee in the coffee-houses that first appeared in Europe in the 1650s. Lively institutions for generating commercial activity on local and global scales, they were also meeting points for intellectual debate and intrigue, but open only to a male clientele. Coffee was served in bowls imported from the port of Canton in China, or from much cheaper, locally made imitations made from tin-glazed earthenware.
The cups and saucers have the same raised prunus relief from the Meissen Manufactory, the same gold scrollwork and woodcut flowers as the rinsing bowl (ID # 1979.0120.12).
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain: Origins of the Print Collection in the Meissen Archives’ Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol 31(1996) pp.99-126.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 538-539.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1735-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1979.0120.10ab
accession number
1979.0120
catalog number
1979.0120.10ab
collector/donor number
59A
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.P-498ab
catalog number
P-498ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1825 -1830
ID Number
CE.P-519Eab
catalog number
P-519Eab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-47ab
catalog number
P-47ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1815
ID Number
CE.P-518Gab
catalog number
P-518Gab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.75.130BQ
catalog number
75.130BQ
accession number
317832
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
early nineteenth century
ID Number
CE.P-99ab
catalog number
P-99ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
Meigh, Charles
ID Number
CE.62.949Kab
catalog number
62.949Ka
accession number
171126
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1825
ID Number
CE.P-511ab
catalog number
P-511ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1763-1774
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-50ab
catalog number
P-50ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1840
ID Number
CE.P-808Dab
catalog number
P-808Dab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.75.130BG
catalog number
75.130BG
accession number
317832
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1815-1820
c.1810, decoration c.1815 -1820
ID Number
CE.P-1073ab.
catalog number
P-1073ab
accession number
225282
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer L. 5⅜" 13.7cm, W. 4⅞" 12.4cmOBJECT NAME: Cup and saucerPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: ca.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer L. 5⅜" 13.7cm, W. 4⅞" 12.4cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1730-1740
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.09ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 435ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” in gold (gold painter’s number).
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
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 quatrefoil shaped cup and saucer has a basket weave design on the exteriors with flowers in relief (erhabene Blumen) enclosed in reserves. On the interiors elaborate scrollwork in purple, iron-red and gold frame waterside subjects in polychrome onglaze enamels. The delicate scrollwork design belongs to the earlier baroque style at Meissen. On the interior of the cup two men in a small boat sail at the entrance to a harbor with buildings in view behind them. On the saucer a man rides a white horse while leading another brown horse beside him. In the background is a coastal landscape with a harbor in the distance.
Sources for enamel painted subjects like these ones came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 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). Many of these landscape and waterside scenes were imaginary, and paintings of existing locations were often altered by the artist. Meissen painters were also encouraged to use their imagination in enamel painting using the prints as a guide. These subjects can be seen on items like fans, enameled copper objects, and painted interiors as well as on porcelain and faience. Their appeal lay in the pleasure of contemplating the tranquility and beauty of the landscape, or the fascination with trade represented in the harbor scenes. 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.
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. Decorative scrollwork was the responsibility of another painter specializing in this form of decoration.
On Meissen sources for enamel painted subjects 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; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.
On sets of prints see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 298-299.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1740
1730-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.09ab
catalog number
1987.0896.09ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
435ab
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1800
ID Number
CE.P-542ab
accession number
225282
catalog number
P-542ab
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1892
ID Number
CE.P-144ab
catalog number
P-144ab
accession number
225282
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.75.130BT
catalog number
75.130BT
accession number
317832
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.75.130BS
catalog number
75.130BS
accession number
317832
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.62.1001Hab
catalog number
62.1001Hab
accession number
171126
Small handleless cup with hemispherical bowl on a raised pedestal base with vertical edge. Gilt washed interior.
Description
Small handleless cup with hemispherical bowl on a raised pedestal base with vertical edge. Gilt washed interior. Edge of base struck with two marks, "TW" in raised serif letters in a rectangular shield and an eagle's head in profile, facing left, in an oval.
Attributed to Thomas Warner of (1780-1828) Baltimore; active, circa 1800-1820 (in partnership with his brother Andrew E. Warner, 1805-1812; served as first City Assayer for Baltimore, 1814 to 1823, and devised duty marks used). Prior to the creation of the Baltimore Assay Office, several Baltimore silversmiths, including Warner, used an eagle's head stamp as a pseudo-hallmark.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1810-1820
ID Number
DL.383595
catalog number
383595
accession number
162866
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
maker
William Adams & Son
ID Number
CE.62.932ab
catalog number
62.932ab
accession number
171126

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