Domestic Furnishings

Tiffany Floor Lamp

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.

Resource Type: Teapots

Teapot

Mallet-shaped teapot with incurved neck and rounded shoulder on a circular, flared pedestal base. Bell-domed, hinged lid with wide, flat, overhanging edge is topped by button knop. Spurred, S-curve, D- or ear-shaped handle in pinned into spiral-scroll sockets.
Description
Mallet-shaped teapot with incurved neck and rounded shoulder on a circular, flared pedestal base. Bell-domed, hinged lid with wide, flat, overhanging edge is topped by button knop. Spurred, S-curve, D- or ear-shaped handle in pinned into spiral-scroll sockets. Faceted, S-curve spout has elongated D-shaped lip. Body perforated at spout. Inset flat bottom. No marks.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1840
ID Number
DL.65.0179
catalog number
65.0179
accession number
258258

Meissen teapot and cover

TITLE: Meissen teapot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen teapot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 4⅛" 10.5cm
OBJECT NAME: Teapot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745-1755
SUBJECT:
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1989.0715.03 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 307
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 teapot 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 teapot has overglaze enamel painted scenes based on the French fêtes champêtre in which a young couple dances while a man plays a woodwind instrument in one scene, and in the other a couple dances to the hurdy-gurdy. The shape of the teapot is one commonly used at Meissen in the 1740s and 1750s. The subject of the dancing couple is based on a print by Nicolas de Larmessin IV (1684-1755) after the painting by Antoine Watteau, The Marriage Contract.
Before Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) developed the subject of the fêtes galantes, reveries based on outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol, he painted a series of works set in the rural village. Rural life, imagined by urban elite society as an idyll of simple pleasures in pastoral surroundings, was already the subject of literature and theatrical performance. Watteau did not attempt to represent the reality of life in the country village and in the fêtes champêtre, he anticipated the search for pleasure in the lush parklands of the Paris environs, the fêtes galantes.
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 on this theme.
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.
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. 346-347.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1745-1755
1745-1755
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1989.0715.03ab
catalog number
1989.0715.03ab
accession number
1989.0715
collector/donor number
307

Teapot

Raised circular teapot with double-bellied lower body engraved "SML" in flecked foliate script on a domed and stepped circular pedestal base. Flattened bulbous upper body and hinged lid, which is topped by a cast spherical cluster of fruits and flowers.
Description
Raised circular teapot with double-bellied lower body engraved "SML" in flecked foliate script on a domed and stepped circular pedestal base. Flattened bulbous upper body and hinged lid, which is topped by a cast spherical cluster of fruits and flowers. Cast convex rims of pairs of cornucopias springing from shells at shoulder and top of pedestal; die-rolled bands of matching decoration at opening and base. Hollow S-curve handle sprouts from waterleaf volutes and is pinned into ivory insulators. S-curve spout has a scrolled waterleaf on top and anthemion on belly. Body perforated at spout. Underside of rounded bottom struck above centerpunch "N.J.BOGERT" in raised roman letters in a rectangle. From a four-piece coffee and tea service, 1985.0962.1-.4.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1830
maker
Bogert, Nicholas J.
ID Number
1985.0962.2
accession number
1985.0962
catalog number
1985.962.2

Teapot

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.62.1000Aab
catalog number
62.1000Aab
accession number
171126

Teapot

Seamed, oblong bulbous teapot with domed oval, hinged lid topped by a cast oval medallion knop on an oval ribbed base with four ball feet; lower body is engraved on one side with a lengthy inscription presenting service from "The Parish of Whittingham & Neighbourhood" to "Mr.
Description
Seamed, oblong bulbous teapot with domed oval, hinged lid topped by a cast oval medallion knop on an oval ribbed base with four ball feet; 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 short incurved neck. 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 a flat inside face and D-shaped, cyma-notched lip. Body perforated at spout. Underbelly to right of handle is struck with six hallmarks. Part of a seven-piece service (including a padded teapot cover or cozy), DL*66.0537A-G.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1818 - 1819
presentation date
1819-01-01
ID Number
DL.66.0537C
catalog number
66.0537C
accession number
265238

Teapot

Raised circular urn-shape teapot with double-flared or -trumpeted, hinged lid topped by a large cast ball on a flared circular pedestal atop a square base with applied sides; one side of body is engraved with a large shaded foliate script "G".
Description
Raised circular urn-shape teapot with double-flared or -trumpeted, hinged lid topped by a large cast ball on a flared circular pedestal atop a square base with applied sides; one side of body is engraved with a large shaded foliate script "G". Beading at edges of lid, base of almost flat, incurved neck, top and bottom of pedestal, face and back of the S-curve spout and at tops of the cylindrical sockets, into which is pinned a C-curve handle with scrolled waterleaf. Body perforated at spout. Outside of base opposite monogram is struck "I•M\c/.Mullin" in raised italic roman letters in a rectangle. Inside of lid incised "oz / 22= dwt / 13". No marks on underside. Part of a six-piece coffee and tea service, DL*037807-DL*037812.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1797
ID Number
DL.037809
catalog number
037809
accession number
117389

Coffeepot

Urn-shape coffeepot with an incurved neck ending in a round bead and flared shoulder atop a tapered cylindrical body on a flared, circular pedestal base. Bell-domed, hinged lid with wide, flat edge is topped by an octagonal fluted knop.
Description
Urn-shape coffeepot with an incurved neck ending in a round bead and flared shoulder atop a tapered cylindrical body on a flared, circular pedestal base. Bell-domed, hinged lid with wide, flat edge is topped by an octagonal fluted knop. Spurred C- and S-curve, D- or ear-shaped handle is pinned into cylindrical sockets. S-scroll spout has an elongated D-shaped lip, faceted face and tongued belly. Body perforated at spou. Underside of inset convex bottom is struck with five marks, including "G.RICHARDSO[N]" in raised serif letters in a finely serrated rectangle, and is scratched at lower left "i/m / u/m / v/m / v/n", possibly by different hands. Fine turning marks inside. Handle and knop with vestiges of black japanning; spout darker than body. Base edge dented.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1830-1840
ID Number
DL.60.1686
catalog number
60.1686
accession number
68968

Sèvres porcelain teapot and cover (part of a service)

The teapot comes from a service that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) gave to his sister Pauline (1780-1825) when she established a home in Paris at the hôtel de Charost.
Description
The teapot comes from a service that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) gave to his sister Pauline (1780-1825) when she established a home in Paris at the hôtel de Charost. The light lilac ground was a fashionable color in post-revolutionary France, a time when interior designers experimented with new and unusual colors and color combinations, and one of the boudoirs in the hôtel de Charost was painted in a similar color. The figure subjects are painted in brown and highlighted in gold. On one side of the teapot the subject is Neptune with the trident in his right hand, riding on a shell through the waves, and drawn by creatures that are half-fish and half-horse. On the other side the subject is Pluto with Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell, pulled by two hybrid monsters. The Sèvres painting of Pluto closely resembles a print by Bernard Picart, dated 1727.
The teapot has a form resembling a classical Greek urn. The light lilac ground on the pot and cover has dark purple ornament painted in overglaze enamel. A Greek key pattern circles the pot below the shoulder, and a foliate frieze circles the foot of the pot. On the pot's shoulder a purple foliate pattern is punctuated by a gold floral medallion, and on the cover a palmette pattern circles the gold finial. The spout, handle, and foot are heavily gilded.
See Liana Paredes, 2009, exhibition catalog “Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain, 1750-2000”, p.73, p.148.
This teapot 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.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1805
ID Number
CE.P-778Aab
catalog number
P-778Aab
accession number
225282

Teapot

Oblong, boat-shaped teapot with repoussé chased bands of roses, C scrolls, thistles and clover or shamrocks on an oval foot ring with four cast shell feet.
Description
Oblong, boat-shaped teapot with repoussé chased bands of roses, C scrolls, thistles and clover or shamrocks on an oval foot ring with four cast shell feet. Flared top has a rectangular, tiered, hinged lid topped by rectangular wood knop; spurred D- or ear-shaped wood handle has a leafy volute for upper socket and cylindrical lower socket; and bellied S-curve spout has a serpentine inside face and D-shaped, notched lip. Body perforated at spout. Knop and handle painted black. Underside struck incuse "DIXON & S[ON]" in serif letters and "6". From a four-piece coffee and tea service, DL*393313A-D.
Maker is James Dixon & Son of Sheffield, England, circa 1823-1835. Started as Dixon & Smith (James Dixon and Thomas Smith) in 1806, succeeded by James Dixon & Son in circa 1823 when James's eldest son, William Frederick Dixon, became his partner; renamed James Dixon & Sons when another son, James Willis Dixon, joined business around 1835 (a third son and son-in-law entered partnership around time when James Dixon, Sr. retired in 1842). Became James Dixon & Sons Ltd. in 1920 and has undergone several additional changes in owner and name since 1930. Company was a major manufacturer of Britannia and, later, silver and plated wares.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1825
ID Number
DL.393313B
catalog number
393313B
accession number
208876

Silver Teapot made for Abigail Robinson of Newport, RI

This silver teapot was made by Samuel Casey of Little Rest (later Kingston, R.I.), about 1750, for Abigail Robinson, probably about the time of her marriage to John Wanton of Newport, R.I., in 1752. Shaped like an inverted pear, the teapot has silver feet and a wooden finial.
Description
This silver teapot was made by Samuel Casey of Little Rest (later Kingston, R.I.), about 1750, for Abigail Robinson, probably about the time of her marriage to John Wanton of Newport, R.I., in 1752. Shaped like an inverted pear, the teapot has silver feet and a wooden finial. The wooden handle is a later replacement. The teapot came to the National Museum from descendents of the Wanton-Robinson family. In the Museum collection, such household items document the history of daily life, families, and patterns of consumption.
Teapots were among the fashionable items that fit many colonists' taste for stylish possessions in 18th-century British North America. Among the prosperous classes, growing numbers adopted the genteel practice of drinking afternoon tea in imitation of the English gentry. Some Americans imported ceramic tea services, while others patronized local silversmiths. Silver was intrinsically expensive, and it allowed engraved decoration and personalized initials, as on this teapot.
Although Abigail Robinson would change her name at marriage, her teapot expressed her identity with her family of origin. Born in 1732, she was a daughter of Deputy Governor William and Abigail (Gardiner) Robinson, and her family owned large estates in the Narragansett area. Robinson's initials are below the family coat-of-arms, a heraldic decoration that identified the American family as descended from Thomas Robinson, an official of "his Majesty's Court of Common Pleas" in London, England. Such coats of arms were an element of English society's commitment to social hierarchy, the division of the population into the few and elite on the one hand, the many and the common on the other. Silver and other items ornamented with coats of arms testify that immigrants to the New World brought with them some of the social distinctions of the Old World.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1750
user
Robinson, Abigail
silversmith
Casey, Samuel
ID Number
1979.0917.01
catalog number
1979.0917.01
accession number
1979.0917

Teapot

"Ultra" pattern teapot; features a slender, 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 teapot; features a slender, 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 and pattern number. 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
1989.0700.08
catalog number
1989.0700.08
accession number
1989.0700

Teapot

Plain, compressed globular teapot with equal-height, incurved neck and pedestal base and creased, tapered shoulder and underbelly. Wide-rimmed, bell-domed, hinged lid is topped by button knop. Spurred, S- and C-curve handle is pinned into leafy spiral-scroll sockets.
Description
Plain, compressed globular teapot with equal-height, incurved neck and pedestal base and creased, tapered shoulder and underbelly. Wide-rimmed, bell-domed, hinged lid is topped by button knop. Spurred, S- and C-curve handle is pinned into leafy spiral-scroll sockets. S-curve spout has angled D-shaped lip, flat face and rounded belly. Body has a finely turned, tinned interior and is perforated at spout. Underside of flat bottom struck "[J.] DANFORTH" in rectangle and "N\o. 14" in sawtooth rectangle, both in roman letters.
Maker is Josiah Danforth (1803-1872) of Middletown, CT; working, 1821-circa 1843. Mold appears identical to that used for teapot DL*59.0608 by J. D. Locke of New York, NY, 1835-1860.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1821-ca 1843
ID Number
DL.300859.0031
catalog number
300859.0031
accession number
300859

Teapot

Conical teapot on shallow foot ring with a flared, hinged lid topped by cast circular knop, a slender S-curve, low-mounted spout and a tapered S-curve handle.
Description
Conical teapot on shallow foot ring with a flared, hinged lid topped by cast circular knop, a slender S-curve, low-mounted spout and a tapered S-curve handle. Body has relief bands of laurel leaves and berries at top and bottom, and an empty, chased and engraved laurel wreath reserve on one side; perforated at spout. Underside of flat bottom is struck incuse "QUADRUPLE PLATE" arched above a spider web with "W" in five-pointed star at its center, and "179" below.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1886 - 1928
ID Number
DL.366316
catalog number
366316
accession number
124063

Meissen teapot and cover

TITLE: Meissen teapot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen teapot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 4½" 11.4cm
OBJECT NAME: Teapot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735-1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 74.138 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 686 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; incised former’s mark belonging to Andreas Schiefer or Scheiber 1690-1761).
PURCHASED FROM: Hans Backer, London, England, 1947. Ex. Coll. F. Neuburg.
This teapot 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 lobed melon-shaped teapot and cover painted in the Japanese Kakiemon style has rice straw fences behind which grow chrysanthemums that drift over the surface of the white porcelain. Rice straw fences occur frequently in the enamel painted porcelains from Arita that were exported to Europe, and the motif is a Japanese one introduced to paintings of the Momoyama period (1573-1615) after Chinese works that feature brushwood and bamboo fences. This ancient method of fencing, still in use today, takes available brushwoods or grain bundles and binds the material to horizontal lengths of bamboo, a type of fencing favored in Japanese tea gardens where the fence supports or contains flowering plants and vines for greater privacy.
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 Dejima, and the Chinese also 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.
On Japanese Kakiemon porcelain see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750,with another melon-shaped teapot made at Meissen on p.265; see also Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection.
For the former’s mark and biography see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p.126.
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, pp. 162-163.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1735-1740
1735-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.74.138ab
catalog number
74.138ab
collector/donor number
686ab
accession number
315259

Worcester porcelain teapot and cover

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c. 1770
1765-1770
ID Number
CE.P-163ab
catalog number
P-163ab
accession number
225282

Teapot

Squat baluster-shape teapot with a slightly domed, hinged lid topped by a ring of floral scrolls, a matching cast floral rim and sprig decoration on its body in imitation of bright-cut engraving; flat bottom. C-curve handle has a scrolled acanthus sprig and conical struts.
Description
Squat baluster-shape teapot with a slightly domed, hinged lid topped by a ring of floral scrolls, a matching cast floral rim and sprig decoration on its body in imitation of bright-cut engraving; flat bottom. C-curve handle has a scrolled acanthus sprig and conical struts. S-curve spout with acanthus at lip and leafy scrolls at sides of wide ribbed base. Perforated convex strainer applied inside body at spout. Bottom underside struck incuse with a horizontal-banded circular mark for "BRISTOL (arched) / PLATE CO. (across center in band) / U.S.A. / QUADRUPLE PLATE (curved)" in sans serif letters above "357". Inside lid struck "24". From a four-piece tea service, DL*66.0275-.0278.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1890
ID Number
DL.66.0275
catalog number
66.0275
accession number
263347

Nyon porcelain teapot

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1800
ID Number
CE.P-490Aab
catalog number
P-490Aab
accession number
225282

Teapot

Small, Aesthetic-style, mixed metal teapot with applied decoration of maple leaves and a spiraling maple key on opposite sides of its apple-shaped body, and a beetle below the stubby conical spout; fixed, tall bracket handle has a smaller maple key at top front corner.
Description
Small, Aesthetic-style, mixed metal teapot with applied decoration of maple leaves and a spiraling maple key on opposite sides of its apple-shaped body, and a beetle below the stubby conical spout; fixed, tall bracket handle has a smaller maple key at top front corner. Inset circular cover is topped by a ribbed knop and small boss at edge. Flat bottom with four raised feet. Body perforated at spout. Bottom underside is fully marked with "TIFFANY & CO" struck incuse above pattern, order, and hammering and mounting design numbers.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1878
maker
Tiffany & Co.
ID Number
1984.0530.01
catalog number
1984.0530.01
accession number
1984.0530
catalog number
1984.0530.01 A, B

Teapot

Circular, scalloped-body teapot engraved "AB" in script with a short incurved neck, flat shoulder and double belly on a domed, circular pedestal base. Round-top, hinged lid has an ivory rosette knop with cast acorn finial.
Description
Circular, scalloped-body teapot engraved "AB" in script with a short incurved neck, flat shoulder and double belly on a domed, circular pedestal base. Round-top, hinged lid has an ivory rosette knop with cast acorn finial. High, C-curve wood handle with scrolled thumbrest is pinned into conical sockets. Tapered S-curve spout has D-shaped lip and flat face, belly and sides. Body perforated at spout. Underside struck "5" for number of cups it holds and scratched with an illegible name. From a coffee- and teapot pair, DL.300417-300418.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1820 - 1840
ID Number
DL.300417
catalog number
300417
accession number
61510

Meissen teapot and cover (part of a service)

TITLE: Meissen: Parts of a tea and coffee service (incomplete)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 2 Cups: H. 2¾" 7cm; 2 Saucers: D. 5¼ 13.3cm; Teapot and cover: H. 4" 10.2cm;Coffeepot and cover: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Parts of a tea and coffee service (incomplete)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 2 Cups: H. 2¾" 7cm; 2 Saucers: D. 5¼ 13.3cm; Teapot and cover: H. 4" 10.2cm;
Coffeepot and cover: H. 8¼" 21cm; Sugar bowl and cover: H. 4¼" 10.8cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea and coffee service (incomplete)
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745-1750
SUBJECT:
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1979.120.13Aa,b; 1979.120.14Ba,b; 1979.120.15a,b;1970.120.16a,b;1979.120.17a,b.
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 707 Aa,b; 707 Ba,b; 708a,b;709a,b;710a,b.
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “4” in gold on sugar bowl; various impressed numbers; “c” impressed on coffeepot and teapot.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1947.
This teapot comes from a tea and coffee service in 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.
Heavy gold and black shell and scroll cartouches frame overglaze enamel paintings of Europeans, North Africans and Near Eastern peoples engaged in activities set in landscapes and in cities. For example, on the cover of the coffee pot a peddler rests against his basket and a man ties his boot lace; on a cup, North Africans mounted on horseback are seen near a fort; on a saucer, women launder clothes in a river. Sources for these enamel painted subjects came from book illustrations recording the occupations and peoples of foreign and European countries, and from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch, and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1730s until the 1750s. The Meissen manufactory accumulated folios of prints, about six to twelve in a set, as well as illustrated books and individual prints after the work of many European artists illustrating the apparel and customs of the peoples of Europe and the wider world, for example: numerous volumes of Naukeurige beschrijvinge (Curious Descriptions) by Olfert Dapper published by Jacob van Meurs in Amsterdam of the peoples of Africa, the Near East, and Asia; Christoph Weigel’s, Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria, worinnen sehr curios und begnügt unter die Augen kommen allerley Aufzüg und Kleidungen unterschiedlicher Stäund Nationen (The New Gallery of the World, in which before the Eyes are set all sorts of the very curious Costumes and Garments of various Classes and Nations) Nuremberg, 1703.
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 was the work of another specialist.
On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters see Möller, K. A., “’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on graphic originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 84-93. On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection : Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 322-323.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1745-1750
1745-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1979.0120.15ab
catalog number
1979.0120.15ab
accession number
1979.0120
collector/donor number
708

Worcester teapot, cover, and stand

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1804-1813
ID Number
CE.P-820Aabc
catalog number
P-820Aabc
accession number
225282

Teapot

Ovoid teapot with incurved neck and low-domed, hinged lid topped by a cross-and-flared-square finial on four legs ending in lion's paw feet; flat-chased mimosa foliage on body and a curvilinear cross design on lid.
Description
Ovoid teapot with incurved neck and low-domed, hinged lid topped by a cross-and-flared-square finial on four legs ending in lion's paw feet; flat-chased mimosa foliage on body and a curvilinear cross design on lid. Sharply-angled handle, square in section and pinned into thin insulators, has a scroll-ended upper terminal and square-and-scroll lower terminal. Circular lion's masks at top corner of handle, sides of S curve spout and middle of leg mounts and sides of the S curve spout. Convex strainer attached inside body at spout. Underside of flat bottom is struck incuse with a circular mark containing a pointed shield with balanced scales bordered by "MERIDEN / B. COMPANY" in sans serif letters; "PATENT APPLIED FOR" is stamped above and "1877" and "5" are below. From a six-piece coffee and tea service, 1984.0424.13-.18.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1871
patent date
1870-07-19
maker
Meriden Britannia Company
ID Number
1984.0424.14
accession number
1984.0424
catalog number
1984.0424.14

Paris porcelain teapot

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1810
ID Number
CE.P-1125ab
catalog number
P-1125ab
accession number
225282

Meissen underglaze blue teapot and cover

MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.This teapot is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr.
Description
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
This teapot 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 collector and 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.
Early in Meissen’s history Johann Friedrich Böttger’s team searched for success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of the Chinese and Japanese prototypes in the Dresden collections. Böttger’s porcelain, however, was fired at a temperature higher than Chinese porcelain or German stoneware. As in China, the underglaze blue pigment was painted on the clay surface before firing, but when glazed and fired the cobalt sank into the porcelain body and ran into the glaze instead of maintaining a clear image like the Chinese originals. The Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II was not satisfied with the inferior product. Success in underglaze blue painting eluded Böttger’s team until Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775) appropriated a workable formula developed by the metallurgist David Köhler (1673-1723). Success required adjustment to the porcelain paste by replacing the alabaster flux with feldspar and adding a percentage of porcelain clay (kaolin) to the cobalt pigment. Underglaze blue painting became a reliable and substantial part of the manufactory’s output in the 1730s.
The “rock and bird” pattern seen on this teapot was adapted by the Meissen manufactory from Japanese porcelain models made in Arita. Japanese enamel painters on porcelain imitated Chinese designs and trade in porcelain between the two countries was extensive before the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, but the Japanese also developed their own style in motifs taken from Chinese sources. Several European porcelain manufactories imitated Meissen’s imitation of the Japanese prototype of a flying bird and flowering tree beside a rock. The double loops circling the opening of the teapot are common to many of the objects with the “rock and bird” pattern.
Underglaze blue painting requires skills similar to a watercolor artist. There are no second chances, and once the pigment touches the clay or biscuit-fired surface it cannot be eradicated easily. Many of Meissen’s underglaze blue designs were, and still are, “pounced” onto the surface of the vessel before painting. Pouncing is a long used technique in which finely powdered charcoal or graphite is allowed to fall through small holes pierced through the outlines of a paper design, thereby serving as a guide for the painter and maintaining a relative standard in the component parts of Meissen table services.
On underglaze blue painting at Meissen see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 22-23.
J. Carswell, 1985, Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and its impact on the Western World.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 252-253.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1725-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.09ab
catalog number
1984.1140.09ab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
404

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