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.

Topic: The Hans C. Syz Collection

Meissen leaf dish: one of a pair (Hausmaler)

TITLE: Meissen: Pair of small leaf dishes (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: L. 3¾" 9.5 cm. H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Pair of small leaf dishes (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: L. 3¾" 9.5 cm. H. 1⅝" 4.2 cm.
OBJECT NAME: Leaf dishes
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1715-1720
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 75.193 A,B
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 781 A,B
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1948.
These leaf dishes 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 leaf dishes 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 outmoded 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 leaf dishes made at the Meissen manufactory imitate Chinese brush washers made in milky white blanc de chine fired in the Dehua kilns in Fujian Province. The dishes were luxury items for the use of scholars who practiced calligraphy. In China the dishes were not decorated except for a floral sprig on the base of the dish that served as a stabilizer. These Meissen copies also have sprigs on the bases with the typical twig-shaped handle. It was probably the Hausmaler Ignaz Preissler of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) who painted the two dishes with exceptionally fine miniature seascapes and harbor scenes. Preissler typically used the technique of painting black transparent enamel (Schwarzlot) onto the surface of the porcelain and then scratched the image through the color. The technique originated in stained glass making, and Preissler followed the tradition established in the German city of Nuremberg, an important center for the use of this technique on glass.
The source for the seascapes and harbor scenes are likely to be the many prints in circulation in artisan workshops after the paintings of Dutch artists of the mid-to-late 1600s that retained their popularity well into the eighteenth century.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
On the work of Ignaz Preissler see Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1989, “’ Repraesentatio Belli, ob successionem in Regno Hispanico...’: A Tea Service and Garniture by the Schwarzlot Decorator Ignaz Preissler” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 24, pp. 239-254.
On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 528-529.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1715-1720
1715-1720
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.75.193B
catalog number
75.193B
collector/donor number
781B
accession number
319073

Meissen cup and saucer: one of a pair

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 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
1979.0120.11ab
catalog number
1979.0120.11ab
accession number
1979.0120
collector/donor number
59B

Meissen miniature vase

TITLE: Meissen miniature vaseMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.3¾" 9.5cmOBJECT NAME: Miniature vasePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry
Description
TITLE: Meissen miniature vase
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H.3¾" 9.5cm
OBJECT NAME: Miniature vase
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1750
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1989.0715.20
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 288
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 miniature vase 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 baluster-shaped miniature vase with two handles in the form of dolphins is painted with scattered naturalistic flowers painted in overglaze enamels.
Miniature vases were used in table decorations for the dessert course. The visual climax of a festive dinner was the dessert, the course in which specially designed vessels in porcelain and glass supported artfully placed fruits, sweetmeats, jellies and creams, and for which the confectioners created elaborate scenes in sugar that were later joined by porcelain figures and centerpieces.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower painters were paid less than workers who specialized in figures and landscapes, and most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. Details in gold were applied by specialists in gold painting and polishing at Meissen. In the late eighteenth century flower painters were even busier and consumer taste for floral decoration on domestic “china” has endured into our own time, but with the exception of a manufactory like Meissen most floral patterns are now applied by transfers and are not hand-painted directly onto the porcelain.
On the Meissen dinner services and table decorations see Ulrich Pietsch “Famous Eighteenth-Century Meissen Dinner Services” and Maureen Cassidy-Geiger “”The Hof-Conditorey in Dresden” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 94-105; 120-131.
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. 378-379.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1750
1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1989.0715.20
accession number
1989.0715
catalog number
1989.0715.20
collector/donor number
288

Meissen bowl

TITLE: Meissen rinsing bowl (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H. 3" 7.6cm; D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen rinsing bowl (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 3" 7.6cm; D. 6" 15.3cm.
OBJECT NAME: Bowl
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740, Meissen
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1979.0120.12
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 58
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “I” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
This rinsing bowl is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in 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 bowl was 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 imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
Between prunus blossoms in relief on the outside of the bowl are flowers painted in the woodcut style (Holzschnittblumen) after the manner of botanical illustration. The interior of the bowl has an entirely different image of a woman on horseback in conversation with a man who directs her on her way. The origin of the subject lies in the numerous genre prints after the work of Dutch artists, many of them active in the seventeenth century. The bowl was painted in the mid-eighteenth century in the workshop of Franz Ferdinand Mayer of Pressnitz Bohemia (now Přísečnice in the Czech Republic).
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46; Gustav E. Pazaurek, 1925, Deutsche Fayence und Porzellan Hausmaler.
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
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1979.0120.12
catalog number
1979.0120.12
accession number
1979.0120
collector/donor number
58

Meissen tea caddy and cover

TITLE: Meissen tea caddy and cover (Hausmalerinnen)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 4" 10.2 cmOBJECT NAME: Tea caddy and coverPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1717-1720SUBJECT: The Hans Sy
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea caddy and cover (Hausmalerinnen)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 4" 10.2 cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea caddy and cover
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1717-1720
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.38 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 668 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1947.
This tea caddy is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in 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 tea caddy was 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 tea caddy was painted in Augsburg in the 1730s, probably by Anna Elizabeth Wald (b.1696) and Sabina Hosennestel (b.1706), the daughters of gold worker and Hausmaler Johann Aufenwerth (d. 1728). Two hundred years earlier Augsburg was the center of international merchant banking, and it is no coincidence that it was also a center for goldsmith work of exceptional quality. Although no longer a powerful city in the eighteenth century, Augsburg was still renowned for its high quality artisan trades in precious metals, book production, and textiles. Hausmalerei was one among many subsidiary trades that met demands from other workshops, individual clients, and new manufactories like that of Meissen.
The tea caddy has a hexagonal baluster form and the arrowhead border on top of the cover is a device often seen in Augsburg Hausmalerei. The elaborate scrolled section below the chinoiseries of gentlemen smoking and taking tea, is characteristic of another Augsburg Hausmaler, Abraham Seuter (1689-1747), and may indicate cross influences between the two workshops. It is also possible that the source was a pattern book published by Jeremias Wolff of Augsburg with designs illustrated on early porcelain models from the Meissen manufactory and the DuPaquier manufactory in Vienna (see Cassidy-Geiger, M., “Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain: Origins of the Print Collection in the Meissen Archives” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol 31(1996) pp.99-126).
On the Augsburg Hausmaler and Hausmalerinnen see Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 508-509.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1715-1720
1715-1720
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.38ab
catalog number
1987.0896.38ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
668

Meissen tea bowl and saucer (Hausmaler)

TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Bowl: H.1¾" 4.5 cmSaucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Bowl: H.1¾" 4.5 cm
Saucer: D. 4⅝" 11.8 cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.14 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 201 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
This tea bowl and saucer is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in 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 tea bowl and saucer 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 outmoded 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 imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The tea bowl and saucer were painted in underglaze blue with the Chinese “rock and bird” pattern and with gold over the glaze at the Meissen manufactory. The Hausmaler F.J. Ferner, who it is thought worked in Thuringia, but about whom little is known, used the white spaces between the patterns to paint European subjects in enamel colors. Here he painted the interior of the bowl and the flange of the saucer with stags and foxes interspersed with floral decoration.
Underglaze blue is a pigment made from cobalt oxide that is applied to the surface of the vessel on porous “biscuit-fired” porcelain before the glaze firing. At first, the Meissen manufactory struggled to find success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of Chinese and Japanese prototypes because cobalt oxide is a powerful flux and runs easily losing the pattern under the glaze. After exhaustive trials the Meissen team developed a stable pigment and a highly successful form of decoration entered production at Meissen in the mid 1720s. Cobalt was mined locally in the mineral rich Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) on the Saxon border with Bohemia, now the Czech Republic.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 554-555.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1740-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1992.0427.14ab
catalog number
1992.0427.14ab
accession number
1992.0427
collector/donor number
201

Meissen quadrangular bottle (Hausmaler)

MARKS: “46” impressed in unglazed base.PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.This bottle is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr.
Description
MARKS: “46” impressed in unglazed base.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
This bottle 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 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.
The bottle (its stopper is missing) was 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 imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The bottle follows the shape of Japanese prototypes in the collection of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland August II (1670 -1733). In Japan this form had its origin as a flask for rice wine or saké, and the shape was a success in reproduction at Meissen, sometimes painted in imitation of the Japanese Kakiemon style, or with European subjects. This bottle was decorated in the Netherlands in about 1740-1750, although the Hausmaler is not known.
Dutch Hausmaler enameled large quantities of Chinese and Japanese porcelain imported from East Asia by the United East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-indische Compagnie), and they enameled European faience and porcelain as well. The quality of the Dutch Hausmalerei was not as refined as Meissen imitations of the Japanese Kakiemon style as this bottle shows, but at its best Dutch enameling can present difficulties in distinguishing East Asian decorative work from that of Holland. The objective was to sell these items at the higher prices obtainable for Japanese Kakiemon porcelain.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46, and the examples of similar saké bottles on p. 530.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 568-569.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1740
ca 1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1992.0427.21
accession number
1992.0427
catalog number
1992.0427.21
collector/donor number
401

Meissen tea caddy

TITLE: Meissen tea caddyMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea caddy
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 4" 10.2cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea caddy
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: 1982.0796.08
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 478
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: “13” in gold (gold painter’s number).
PURCHASED FROM: Julius Carlebach, New York, 1944.
This tea caddy is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The tea caddy forms part of what was a richly decorated tea service with two tea bowls and saucers (ID numbers 1982.0796.09 Aab Bab); the cover on the caddy is a restoration. Leaf and strapwork (Laub-und Bandelwerk) frames enclose overglaze enamel painted Kauffahrtei in which merchants of European and Asian origin conduct business, direct and cajole laborers in handling cargo.
Sources for harbor scenes came from the large 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 harbor and waterside scenes were imaginary, and paintings of existing locations were often altered by the artist. Meissen painters were 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 derived from fascination with commercial trade in exotic material goods and contact with peoples from distant lands.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (people 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 scrollwork in gold and the leaf and strapwork painted in purple and iron-red enamel, purple luster, and gold was the work of other specialists in the painting division. Gold polishing was yet another category of work in the painting division that required great care to avoid damage to products, especially delicate tea bowls and saucers. Most items manufactured at Meissen passed though many hands in their making.
Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers, and the equipage for these hot beverages, made in silver and new ceramic materials like Meissen’s red stoneware and porcelain, was affordable only to the aristocratic and business elites of European society.
On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters see Möller, K. A., “’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on graphic originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 84-93.
On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
On tea, coffee, and chocolate equipage see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 116-117.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1735
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1982.0796.08ab
accession number
1982.0796
catalog number
1982.0796.08ab
collector/donor number
478ab

Meissen coffee pot and cover (Hausmaler)

TITLE: Meissen coffee pot and cover (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 8½" 21.6 cm.OBJECT NAME: Coffee pot and coverPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740-1750, MeissenSUBJECT: The
Description
TITLE: Meissen coffee pot and cover (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 8½" 21.6 cm.
OBJECT NAME: Coffee pot and cover
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750, Meissen
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 76.379 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 897 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “B” in underglaze blue; “N” incised.
PURCHASED FROM: B. & M. Segal, Basel, Switzerland, 1952.
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 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 coffee pot and cover was 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 painted 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 imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
When Hausmalerei became increasingly troublesome to the porcelain manufactories they took measures to prevent it through the application of marks and control of sales. Nevertheless, sub-standard pieces and outmoded models still reached the hands of the Hausmaler. This coffee pot illustrates one of the methods by which the independent enamel painters managed to keep their practice active. Before it left the Meissen manufactory this coffee pot was painted in underglaze blue with the “rock and bird” pattern and with gold over the glaze. The Hausmaler F.J. Ferner, who ran a workshop
in Thuringia, but about whom little is known, used the white spaces between the patterns to paint European subjects in enamel colors. In this coffee pot he inserted a European pastoral scene of a sleeping shepherd between the oriental style “rock and bird” pattern.
Underglaze blue is a pigment made from cobalt oxide that is applied to the surface of the porous “biscuit-fired” porcelain before the glaze firing. At first, the Meissen manufactory struggled to find success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of Chinese and Japanese prototypes because cobalt oxide is a powerful flux and runs easily blurring the pattern under the glaze. After exhaustive trials that involved a change to the cobalt pigment and the porcelain body this highly successful form of decoration entered production at Meissen in the mid 1720s. Cobalt was mined locally in the mineral rich Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) on the Saxon border with Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46; Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, Volume 1.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 558-559.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1750
1740-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.76.379ab
catalog number
76.379ab
collector/donor number
897
accession number
1977.0166

Meissen plate (Hausmaler)

TITLE: Meissen plate (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 9½" 24.2 cm.
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.44
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 716
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “6” or “9” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Otto Buel Gallery, Lucerne, Switzerland, 1947.
This plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in 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 plate was 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 imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
Bayreuth was the German city in which the Hausmalerei workshop of Johann Friedrich Metsch (1706-1766) was situated, and he is recorded also as painting on porcelain in Dresden in about 1731. After the Meissen manufactory refused to supply him with blank pieces he moved to Bayreuth and worked for the faience manufactory there. In his own workshop he painted on white Meissen vessels and on porcelain imported from Jingdezhen in China. This plate is typical of his style that featured landscapes, floral designs, harbor scenes and mythological subjects, often painted in purple monochrome and framed by elaborate scrollwork like the shell motif seen here. The sources for his subjects were the numerous ornamental prints circulating in artisan workshops, and prints after paintings by Dutch, French, and Italian artists.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46; Pazaurek G.E., 1925, Deutsche Fayence und Porzellan Hausmaler.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 544-545.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1750
1740-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.44
catalog number
1987.0896.44
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
716

Meissen coffee pot and cover

TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H. 8⅝" 22cmOBJECT 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. 8⅝" 22cm
OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1725-1730
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1982.0796.07ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 300ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “64” in gold (gold painter’s number); incised cross.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
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.
The circular reserves framed in purple luster, iron-red enamel, and gold accentuate the rotund belly of this coffeepot with its generous scroll-shaped handle. In one reserve there is a Kauffahrtei (merchant) scene, and in the other a winter scene, both of which are characteristic of the work of seventeenth-century Dutch artists. At Meissen these subjects are associated with the work of Christian Friedrich Herold, although it is unlikely that he painted this coffeepot, but he may have introduced winter scenes to the Meissen painting division after the work of Jan van de Velde II (ca. 1593-1641), a prolific printmaker who specialized in landscape subjects; the wind-blown tree bare of leaves is emblematic of van de Velde’s works. A horse-drawn sledge struggles up an incline to the left of the scene with a windmill beyond, while another sledge stands loaded with passengers about to depart. In the foreground a man negotiates the icy surface in a pair of skates.
The Kauffahrtei scene features three well-dressed merchants in foreign and European clothing possibly haggling over the price of goods piled behind them. Off-shore several small craft and larger sailing vessels stand at anchor. On the cover there is a continuous harbor scene of men working on the shoreline while others stand looking out towards the sea.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (people 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 circular frames for the reserves were the work of another specialist in the painting division, and yet another worker completed the gold ornamentation and polishing.
On the Meissen painter Christian Friedrich Herold see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.38.
On Dutch printmaking see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries
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.106-107.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1725-1730
1725-1730
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1982.0796.07ab
accession number
1982.0796
catalog number
1982.0796.07ab
collector/donor number
300ab

Meissen octagonal soup plate

TITLE: Meissen soup plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 9¼" x 9¼" 23.5x 23.5cmOBJECT NAME: Soup platePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic FurnishingIndust
Description
TITLE: Meissen soup plate
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 9¼" x 9¼" 23.5x 23.5cm
OBJECT NAME: Soup plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1750
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1989.0715.17
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 499
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords, dot, and line across foot ring in underglaze blue; “13” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
This soup plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The octagonal soup plate, based on silver models, has a spray of German flowers and individual scattered flowers in overglaze enamels. European flowers began to appear on Meissen porcelain in about 1740 as the demand for Far Eastern patterns became less dominant and more high quality printed sources became available in conjunction with growing interest in the scientific study of flora and fauna. For German flowers (deutsche Blumen) Meissen painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s publication, the Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745), in which many of the plates were engraved after drawings by the outstanding botanical illustrator Georg Dionys Ehret (1708-1770). The more formally correct German flowers were superseded by mannered flowers (manier Blumen), depicted in a looser and somewhat overblown style based on the work of still-life flower painters and interior designers like Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) and Louis Tessier (1719?-1781), later referred to as “naturalistic” flowers.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit painters were paid less than workers who specialized in figures and landscapes, and most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. Details in gold were applied by specialists in gold painting and polishing at Meissen.
The octagonal shape for soup plates was used frequently at Meissen with a wide variety of on-glaze enamel and underglaze blue patterns.
On graphic sources for Meissen porcelain see Möller, K. A., “Meissen Pieces Based on Graphic Originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.85-93; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.
On the 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. 374-375.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1765-1770
1765-1770
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1989.0715.17
accession number
1989.0715
catalog number
1989.0715.17
collector/donor number
499

Meissen dish (Hausmaler)

TITLE: Meissen dish (Hausmaler)MAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen dish (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 13½" 34.2 cm
OBJECT NAME: Dish
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730-1735
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 63.267
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 529
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords and “K” in underglaze blue; “3” incised.
PURCHASED FROM: Julius Carlebach, New York, 1944.
This dish is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in 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 dish was 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 imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The dish has a variation of the Meissen “onion” pattern painted in underglaze blue at the manufactory. The gold decoration was applied later, probably in a workshop in Augsburg in the 1730s; the scrollwork on the gold band framing the center of the dish was typical of Augsburg ornamentation on porcelain, and fine dry point engraving on gold was another technique practiced by the Augsburg Hausmaler. The so-called underglaze blue “onion” pattern was a Meissen design incorporating various stylized motifs from original Chinese prototypes.
Underglaze blue is a pigment made from cobalt oxide that is applied to the surface of the porous raw clay or biscuit-fired porcelain before the high temperature glaze firing. At first, the Meissen manufactory struggled to find success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of Chinese and Japanese prototypes because cobalt oxide is a powerful flux and runs easily blurring the pattern under the glaze. After exhaustive trials involving a change to the porcelain body itself, this highly successful form of decoration entered production at Meissen in the early-to-mid 1720s. Cobalt was mined locally in the mineral rich Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) near the Saxon border with Bohemia, now the Czech Republic.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 504-505.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1735
1730-1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.63.267
catalog number
63.267
collector/donor number
529
accession number
251652

Meissen coffee pot and cover

TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.
Description
TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: H. 8⅜" 21.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1735-1740
SUBJECT:
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.44ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1105
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “a” in purple over the glaze on the base and inner cover (painter’s marks).
PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1960.
This coffeepot and cover 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 coffeepot and cover based on silver prototypes have purple grounds and in the reserve on one side of the pot a rural cottage with a figure emerging from the door stands near a river bank; in the other reserve a well-dressed family watch as a man sails a small vessel on the river. On the cover are two harbor scenes. The handle has old metal repairs.
Sources for enamel painted landscapes and river scenes came from the large number of prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century, and they formed a major part of Meissen’s decorative output from the early 1730s until the 1760s.The enduring popularity of waterside and landscape subjects, especially the tranquil rural scenes depicted in prints by artists like Jan van de Velde, held particular appeal for city dwellers and for the nobility at court. Long before Meissen began production Dutch artists realized the potential for a market in prints that led viewers into pleasant places real and imagined, and for whom rural life represented a picturesque diversion. In seventeenth-century Amsterdam there was a flourishing publishing industry to support the production of illustrated books and print series for buyers to view at their leisure.
The colored ground was applied using a brush lightly loaded with purple enamel color which was then flicked onto the surface of the glaze, possibly preprared with gum arabic for adhesion. The reserves were either masked out or the ground color was carefully wiped off after application.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes and subjects with figures were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. On-glaze gold decoration was the work of specialist gold painters and polishers.
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 Dutch prints see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
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. 302-303.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1735-1740
1735-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.44ab
catalog number
1983.0565.44ab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
1105ab

Meissen teapot and cover (part of a service)

TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea serviceMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D. 5¾" 14.6cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea service
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745-1760
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.52a,b; 53a,b; 54AB
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 147a,b; 148a,b;149AB
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; Maltese cross impressed on coffeepot; “53” impressed on saucers.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
These pieces from a tea service are 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.
Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (reg. 1733-1763), ordered a large service for Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia (reg. 1741-1761) on the occasion of the marriage of her nephew Karl Peter Ulrich Duke of Holstein-Gottorf (later Tsar Peter III, reg. 1761-1762) to Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (later Tsarina Catherine II, reg. 1762-1796). The service was one of the early diplomatic gifts produced at Meissen on a large scale, and included a tea and coffee service in the 400 items sent to Russia in 1745.
Unpainted sections on this service are decorated with the “raised flowers” (erhabene Blumen) in relief; a pattern modeled for a service in 1741and ordered two or three years later by the Berlin merchant, art dealer, and porcelain entrepreneur Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky (1710-1775). The enamel painted sections contain the double-headed imperial eagle with St. George on the pectoral shield, which is one of the emblems on the chain of the Imperial Order of St. Andrew First Called, and the cross of St Andrew can be seen on the saucers. The Order of St. Andrew was founded in 1698 by Tsar Peter I the Great. The naturalistic German flowers are painted in overglaze enamel in a style that followed the German woodcut flowers (Holzschnittblumen) that appear on the service for the Tsarina, indicating that these pieces were a later addition to the service, or made at a later date for the Russian market. The gold border decorating the rims was the work of a specialist gold painter.
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 exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
On the service for Tsarina Elizabeth see Lydia Liackhova, chapter 4 “In a Porcelain Mirror: Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth” in Cassidy-Geiger, M., 2008, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts 1710-63; Ulrich Pietsch “Famous Eighteenth-Century Meissen Dinner Services” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.101-102.
On tea and coffee drinking see see Ukers, W. H., 1922, All About Coffee, and 1935, All About Tea; on the practice of drinking tea, coffee, and chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; See also Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug. On the coffee house see Ellis, M. 2011, The Coffee House: A Cultural History.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 290-291.
Location
Currently on loan
date made
ca 1745-1760
1745-1760
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.53ab
catalog number
1983.0565.53ab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
148

Meissen tea bowl and saucer

TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D. 4¾" 12.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.12 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 494 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords and a dot in underglaze blue; “6” or “9” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
This tea bowl and saucer is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
With a dense brown iron oxide-based glaze known as “dead leaf” or Capuchin brown after the habit of Franciscan Capuchin monks, the tea bowl and saucer have small reserves in which floral medallions are painted in underglaze blue, overglaze iron-red, purple, and gold. The medallions appear to float on the surface interspersed with birds and insects painted in gold. Few of these pieces exist because the Manufactory Commission considered the procedure for decorating them too costly, requiring too many kiln firings as well as gold polishing to finish the pieces.The surface treatment may have been intended to imitate Japanese lacquer work of the Edo period. The iron oxide based color was developed by Samuel Stölzel (1685-1737) in 1720 (see Pietsch below) and it is usually seen with underglaze blue patterns after Chinese prototypes (see for example ID# 1984.1140.03ab).
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 and for entertaining guests. Coffee houses were exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
For two more tea bowls and saucers from this service see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.124.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 208-209.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.12ab
catalog number
1984.1140.12ab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
494ab

Meissen plate

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D. 9¼" 23.5cmOBJECT NAME: PlatePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740SUBJECT: ArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry and ManufacturingCREDIT LINE: Hans C.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 9¼" 23.5cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1984.1140.23
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 631
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “16” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, Switzerland, 1947.
PROVENANCE: Ex Coll. C. H. Fischer
This plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The plate has a petal-shaped rim and is painted in onglaze enamels with three butterflies on the flange and with a horse-like creature of fable (Fabeltier) prancing in the center flanked by exotic plants; two birds fly above the scene.
The Meissen artist accredited with the introduction of the imaginary beasts of fable (Fabeltiere) is Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck (1714-1754) who developed a painting style quite different to that of the director of the painting division, Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775). Löwenfinck joined the manufactory in 1727, but his career as a painter at Meissen was short following completion of his apprenticeship in 1734. In 1736 he left Saxony under a cloud following a serious conflict with another worker at Meissen that had legal consequences he wished to avoid. Nevertheless, his work at the manufactory, and subsequently at several faience manufactories in the German territories, is considered exceptional in quality and originality.
The fabulous beasts (Fabeltiere) came from East Asian sources and from printed material available in early modern European publications depicting animals both real, imaginary, or a mixture of both. Although published in the mid-sixteenth century Conrad Gessner’s four-volume Historia Animalium was still a major reference work over one hundred years later, reprinted and copied by authors and publishers many times over.The creature on this plate has the body and legs of a strange piebald horse, but its long neck and bizarre head with long ears are more reptilian, like the little dragons seen on Japanese Kakiemon porcelain and copied by Meissen painters (see ID# 74.136). The flowing tail and spikey mane also refer to creatures depicted on Japanese Kakiemon wares in the Dresden collections. Other Meissen painters worked in Löwenfinck’s style, and this plate is an example of one that was painted about four years after he left the manufactory.
On the Meissen painter Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck see the exhibition catalog Phantastic World: Painting on Meissen Porcelain and German Faience by Adam Friedrich von Löwenfinck 1714-1754, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, 2014, and Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 171-173.
For more examples of this class of subjects see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 232-236.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collectio: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 216-217.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.23
accession number
1984.1140
catalog number
1984.1140.23
collector/donor number
631

Meissen cup and saucer (part of a service)

TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea serviceMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D. 5¾" 14.6cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea service
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745-1760
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.52a,b; 53a,b; 54AB
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 147a,b; 148a,b;149AB
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; Maltese cross impressed on coffeepot; “53” impressed on saucers.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
These pieces from a tea service are 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.
Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (reg. 1733-1763), ordered a large service for Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia (reg. 1741-1761) on the occasion of the marriage of her nephew Karl Peter Ulrich Duke of Holstein-Gottorf (later Tsar Peter III, reg. 1761-1762) to Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (laterTsarina Catherine II, reg. 1762-1796). The service was one of the early diplomatic gifts produced at Meissen on a large scale, and included a tea and coffee service in the 400 items sent to Russia in 1745.
Unpainted sections on this service are decorated with the “raised flowers” (erhabene Blumen) in relief; a pattern modeled for a service in 1741and ordered two or three years later by the Berlin merchant, art dealer, and porcelain entrepreneur Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky (1710-1775). The enamel painted sections contain the double-headed imperial eagle with St. George on the pectoral shield, which is one of the emblems on the chain of the Imperial Order of St. Andrew First Called, and the cross of St Andrew can be seen on the saucers. The Order of St. Andrew was founded in 1698 by Tsar Peter I the Great. The naturalistic German flowers are painted in overglaze enamel in a style that followed the German woodcut flowers (Holzschnittblumen) that appear on the service for the Tsarina, indicating that these pieces were a later addition to the service, or made at a later date for the Russian market. The gold border decorating the rims was the work of a specialist gold painter.
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 exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
On the service for Tsarina Elizabeth see Lydia Liackhova, chapter 4 “In a Porcelain Mirror: Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth” in Cassidy-Geiger, M., 2008, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts 1710-63; Ulrich Pietsch “Famous Eighteenth-Century Meissen Dinner Services” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.101-102.
On tea and coffee drinking see see Ukers, W. H., 1922, All About Coffee, and 1935, All About Tea; on the practice of drinking tea, coffee, and chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; See also Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug. On the coffee house see Ellis, M. 2011, The Coffee House: A Cultural History.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 290-291.
Location
Currently on loan
date made
ca 1745-1760
1745-1760
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.54Bab
catalog number
1983.0565.54Bab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
149b

Meissen underglaze blue cup and saucer

MARKS: Crossed swords with formers’ and painters’ marks in underglaze blue.PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1946.These parts of a tea service are from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr.
Description
MARKS: Crossed swords with formers’ and painters’ marks in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1946.
These parts of a tea service 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 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 design for this tea service may have its origins in the late 1720s, but the impressed marks on these pieces indicate a later date, and the service was in production for many years. The shapes are based on contemporary silver vessels, but the raised lobes were exploited to resemble Far Eastern lotus patterns with alternate painted motifs of stylized insects and flowers. The service contains underglaze blue painted birds perched in flowering trees and scenes of a seated Chinese fisherman, a pattern that occurs frequently in Meissen blue and white porcelain. Additional decoration is supplied by the scale pattern between the reserves
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, and for a teapot with the same pattern see p. 265.
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. 240-241.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1745
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1984.1140.17Bab
catalog number
1984.1140.17Bab
accession number
1984.1140
collector/donor number
572

Meissen plate

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 8⅜" 21.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1729-1731
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1982.0796.10
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1021
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in overglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: The Art Exchange, New York, 1957.
This plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The plate is decorated in the Japanese Kakiemon style with banded hedges, chrysanthemums and peonies in the center with four floral sprays on the rim.
Banded rice or brushwood fences occur frequently in the enamel painted porcelains from Arita that were exported to Europe and they represent a garden landscape. Today, this ancient method of fencing takes available brushwoods that are bound to horizontal lengths of bamboo and are favored in gardens surrounding tea gardens and temples. The many petaled flowers of chrysanthemum and peony are seen together frequently on Japanese Kakiemon porcelains, but the design on this plate is more crowded with the floral motifs placed in a symmetrical pattern that indicates a Meissen adaptation from a Japanese prototype, and no Japanese model for this pattern has been identified in the porcelain collection in Dresden. The enamel painting is also handled too heavily to match the original Japanese Kakiemon style. It was a matter of great importance to the Meissen Manufactory that its products should match the quality of the best Chinese and Japanese porcelain in order to defray the need to import from the Far East, but this requirement was exploited by the Parisian dealer Rodolphe Lemaire, who sold Meissen copies of Japanese porcelains at inflated prices in Paris. In this example the quality of the glaze also falls short in comparison to the Japanese prototypes.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
On the Kakiemon syle and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750. See also Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
On the Hoym-Lemaire affair see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band I, and for examples of Meissen pieces with a similar but not identical pattern see S. 191-194.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 154-155.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1725
1725
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1982.0796.10
accession number
1982.0796
catalog number
1982.0796.10
collector/donor number
1021

Meissen underglaze blue tray

MARKS: Crossed swords with dot and “K” in underglaze blue.PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1951.This tray is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr.
Description
MARKS: Crossed swords with dot and “K” in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1951.
This tray 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 in the center of the tray was adapted by the Meissen manufactory from Japanese porcelain models made in Arita. Japanese enamel painters on porcelain imitated Chinese designs, but also transformed them into a decorative style informed by Japanese painting schools. Several European porcelain manufactories then imitated Meissen’s imitation of the Japanese prototype of a flying bird and flowering tree beside a rock. Placed in symmetry around the "rock and bird" are butterflies and sprays of "Indian flowers" based on Japanese and Chinese motifs.
The corners of the tray are molded in a rocaille ornament, a European style of the mid-eighteenth century that referred, somewhat loosely at times, to natural forms like shells, rocks, flowing water, and foliage.
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 an ancient 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. 258-259.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1725-1730
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.37
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
888
catalog number
1983.0565.37

Meissen octagonal plate

TITLE: Meissen plateMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen plate
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 9½" 24.2cm
OBJECT NAME: Plate
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.36
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1440
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Galerie Jürg Stuker, Bern, Switzerland, 1964.
This plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
Meissen based the shape of this softly molded octagonal plate on a Chinese prototype in the Dresden collections. Following the Chinese famille verte porcelains much admired by Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland and characterized by their translucent emerald green enamel patterns, the famille rose palette was even more attractive to Europeans. Ruby glass and rose pink enamel colors were developed in Europe before they were seen in China; it is not clear how the transmission from Europe to China occurred, if indeed it did so by that route, but most likely it was through enameled objects taken to China by Europeans through trade or as diplomatic gifts. The translucent ruby red pigment, derived from the presence of nanoparticles of colloidal gold in glass, was painted over, or mixed with, an opaque white to give various shades of pink.
Peonies on a gold scrolled background decorate the rim of the plate and in the center the composition has motifs from the Chinese“hundred antiques” that include a vase containing a chrysanthemum, scholars’ scrolls, a gameboard, and a peony in bloom. The motifs depicting the “hundred antiques” do not amount to that number exactly but refer to the notion of a quantity of various objects associated with antiquity, the arts, learning, and the natural world that were valued by the Chinese elite, especially the scholars. An interloper of Manchu origin the Khang-Hsi emperor (1662-1722) encouraged revival of traditional Han Chinese culture to gain greater security and stability for the empire under the Qing dynasty. In addition to their role as objects of connoisseurship and contemplation in the Confucian tradition the emblems of the “hundred antiques” were used as decorative motifs common to Chinese textiles, furniture, lacquer wares, and ceramics.
Two plates with the same impressed number “22” are in the collection of Ernst Schneider, Schloss Lustheim, in Munich, see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 398-399.
A terrine now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and made at the earlier date of about 1735 has a similar pattern to that in the center of the plate, see den Blaauwen, A. L., 2000, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, p. 44. See also the plate dated 1735 in Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 237.
On famille rose enamel see Valenstein, S. G., 1975 (1989), A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, p.242, and
Needham, J., 2004, Kerr, R., Wood, N., Vol. 5, Part 12, Science and Civilization in China: Ceramic Technology, p.634.
On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 224-225.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740
1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.36
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.36
collector/donor number
1440

Meissen cup and saucer (part of a service)

TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea serviceMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D.
Description
TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D. 5¾" 14.6cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea service
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1745-1760
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.52a,b; 53a,b; 54AB
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 147a,b; 148a,b;149AB
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; Maltese cross impressed on coffeepot; “53” impressed on saucers.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
These pieces from a tea service are 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.
Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (reg. 1733-1763), ordered a large service for Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia (reg. 1741-1761) on the occasion of the marriage of her nephew Karl Peter Ulrich Duke of Holstein-Gottorf (later Tsar Peter III, reg. 1761-1762) to Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (laterTsarina Catherine II, reg. 1762-1796). The service was one of the early diplomatic gifts produced at Meissen on a large scale, and included a tea and coffee service in the 400 items sent to Russia in 1745.
Unpainted sections on this service are decorated with the “raised flowers” (erhabene Blumen) in relief; a pattern modeled for a service in 1741and ordered two or three years later by the Berlin merchant, art dealer, and porcelain entrepreneur Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky (1710-1775). The enamel painted sections contain the double-headed imperial eagle with St. George on the pectoral shield, which is one of the emblems on the chain of the Imperial Order of St. Andrew First Called, and the cross of St Andrew can be seen on the saucers. The Order of St. Andrew was founded in 1698 by Tsar Peter I the Great. The naturalistic German flowers are painted in overglaze enamel in a style that followed the German woodcut flowers (Holzschnittblumen) that appear on the service for the Tsarina, indicating that these pieces were a later addition to the service, or made at a later date for the Russian market. The gold border decorating the rims was the work of a specialist gold painter.
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 exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
On the service for Tsarina Elizabeth see Lydia Liackhova, chapter 4 “In a Porcelain Mirror: Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth” in Cassidy-Geiger, M., 2008, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts 1710-63; Ulrich Pietsch “Famous Eighteenth-Century Meissen Dinner Services” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.101-102.
On tea and coffee drinking see see Ukers, W. H., 1922, All About Coffee, and 1935, All About Tea; on the practice of drinking tea, coffee, and chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; See also Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug. On the coffee house see Ellis, M. 2011, The Coffee House: A Cultural History.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 290-291.
Location
Currently on loan
date made
ca 1745-1760
1745-1760
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.54Aab
catalog number
1983.0565.54Aab
accession number
1983.0565
collector/donor number
149a

Meissen teapot and cover

TITLE: Meissen teapot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 4⅛" 10.5cmOBJECT NAME: TeapotPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1740-1750SUBJECT: ArtDomestic FurnishingIndustry and ManufacturingCREDIT L
Description
TITLE: Meissen teapot and cover
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 4⅛" 10.5cm
OBJECT NAME: Teapot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740-1750
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.05 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1216 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: A. Neuberger, New York, 1962.
This teapot and cover 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 teapot and cover with a wishbone handle and dragon spout is a later example of items reminiscent of the early Böttger porcelains admired for their raised ornament, and designed originally by the Dresden court goldsmith Johann Jacob Irminger (1635-1724), the so-called Irmingersche Belege. The applied grapevine (Wein-Laub) design seen on this teapot and cover was especially favored.
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 exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
For a similar example with a relief of Far Eastern flowering prunus branches, also much admired, see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.451.
On the introduction of tea, coffee, and chocolate to European social and cultural life see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; see also Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug; on the history of tea see Ukers, W. H., 1935, All about Tea; on coffee houses see Ellis, M. 2011,The Coffee House: A Cultural History.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 274-275.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1740-1750
1740-1750
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.05ab
catalog number
1987.0896.05ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
1216ab

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