| National Museum of American History

TITLE: Meissen figure of a child fish sellerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 3¾" 9.5 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1755-1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomes

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a child fish seller; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3¾" 9.5 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1755-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1993.447.04; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 82; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; small double “G” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; The cupid figure of a fish seller, identified by the wings on her back, is a version of the street trader series: two adult figures of street sellers of carp and oysters appear in the Cries of Paris series after drawings by Christophe Huet.; The Meissen cupids, the ‘costumed cupids’ or putti in disguise, represent a large group of about eighty figures modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in the 1750s to early 1760s and remodeled by Michel Victor Acier1736-1799) after the Seven Years War in 1764. Usually, but not always, identified by the presence of wings on their backs, cupids represent many of the trades and artisanal activities, the Italian Comedy characters, allegorical and emblematic themes.; Cupids, or putti, tumble through the skies in Italian paintings of the seventeenth-century Baroque period. They are present in sacred and secular architecture rolling and gamboling through churches and palaces, supporting and framing the sculptures of both religious and allegorical subjects. Their antecedents were angelic and asexual in the Christian religion, but in pagan antiquity Cupid or Eros was the agent for the arousal of sexual desire. The eighteenth-century French painter François Boucher (1703-1770), strongly influenced by Italian painting during his studies in Italy, painted most of his classical subjects with chubby putti emphasizing the representation of amorous desire. In the Meissen figures the ‘costumed cupids’ and putti in disguise are coy versions of the manufactory’s adult figures in which the erotic signification of the cupid figure is suppressed by the overlaid disguises.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; On Cupid see Grafton, A., Most, G.W., Settis, S., eds. 2010, The Classical Tradition, pp. 244-246.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmaler, p.470-471.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1760; 1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1993.0447.04
accession number: 1993.0447
catalog number: 1993.0447.04
collector/donor number: 82

Three block alphabets; two alphabets colored in pairs, one all black; no "J"; numbers 1 through 0. Simple geometric crossbands framed by flowering vine and rose bushes. At base of sampler, centered tree flanked by two framed inscriptions, with tulips and strawberries.

Description: Three block alphabets; two alphabets colored in pairs, one all black; no "J"; numbers 1 through 0. Simple geometric crossbands framed by flowering vine and rose bushes. At base of sampler, centered tree flanked by two framed inscriptions, with tulips and strawberries. Single row of cross stitch forms border on all four sides. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, petit point, Algerian eye, rice, queen. THREAD COUNT: warp 34, weft 38/in.; Inscriptions:; "Better it is to be
of an humble Spi
rit with the low
ly than to divide
the Spoil with
the proud"; "Esther Copp her
Sampler made in
the eleventh
year of her age
august AD 1765"; Background:; Jonathan Copp was born on June 12, 1694, and married Mrs. Sarah (Dennis) Hobart as his second wife on June 30, 1742, in Stonington, Connecticut. Their daughter Esther was born on October 23, 1754, in New London, Connecticut, and she never married. She died September 21, 1829. (See sampler by Phebe Esther Copp, her grandniece. A tree, rose bush, and one text are the same on both samplers.) Esther's sampler is part of an extensive collection of 18th- and 19th- century household textiles, costume items, furniture, and other pieces belonging to the Copps, a prosperous but frugal Connecticut family. The collection was donated to the United State National Museum in the 1890s by John Brenton Copp, offering the nation the opportunity to preserve and study the everyday possessions of a New England family.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1765

maker: Copp, Esther

ID Number: TE.H06590
catalog number: H06590
accession number: 28810

TITLE: Meissen figure group of Leda and the swanMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 6½" 16.5 cmOBJECT NAME: Figure groupPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750-1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collect

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure group of Leda and the swan; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 6½" 16.5 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure group; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.15; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 237; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; This figure group 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.; Leda was Queen of Sparta, the wife of King Tyndareus. The god Zeus, inclined to act on his passions for mortal women, took the form of a swan and seduced Leda on the same night that she conceived two children by her mortal husband Tyndareus. By Zeus, the progeny of one egg were the twins Castor and Polydeuces, or in another version of the legend, Polydeuces and Helen, while by Tyndareus, Leda bore Castor and Clytemnestra. Her twin sons became known as the Dioskouri and they joined the Argonauts led by Jason. Represented in the night sky they are the stars Castor and Pollux. Helen and Clytemnestra were the wives of heroes in the Trojan War, Menelaus and Agamemnon.; The subject of Leda and the swan has the potential for erotic depiction in both the visual and literary arts, but in the figure group modeled by Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749) the erotic potential is implied lightly. Erotic and pornographic subjects in porcelain objects tend to appear on the underside of snuff box lids, in small objects that could be concealed easily in a pocket, or the interior of a bourdelou used only in private apartments.; Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749) modeled this group of Leda placing a flower wreath around the swan’s neck while a putto watches from her side with sly curiosity.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; On Leda see Grafton, A., Most, G.W., Settis, S., eds. 2010, The Classical Tradition, p. 519.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 436-437.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1992.0427.15
accession number: 1992.0427
catalog number: 1992.0427.15
collector/donor number: 237

TITLE: Meissen figure of a child pastry vendorMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 3⅞" 9.9 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a child pastry vendor; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3⅞" 9.9 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1993.447.03; COLLECTOR/ DONOR:; ACCESSION NUMBER: 81; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: None; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Hans Syz began collecting in the early years of World War II, when he first 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 figure is from the series ‘costumed cupids’ modeled by Kaendler between 1755 and 1760; his wings have broken off. The figure is an example of the cupid series based on the street traders. Peter Reinicke (1715-1768) modeled an adult figure version of a Pattissier after a drawing by Christophe Huet (1692-1765), at about the same time. The cupid wears clothing similar to the adult version.; The Meissen cupids, the ‘costumed cupids’ or putti in disguise, represent a large group of about eighty figures modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in the 1750s to early 1760sand remodeled by Michel Victor Acier1736-1799) after the Seven Years War in 1764. Usually, but not always, identified by the presence of wings on their backs, cupids represent many of the trades and artisanal activities, the Italian Comedy characters, the emblematic and allegorical personifications of the adult figures.; Cupids, or putti, tumble through the skies in Italian paintings of the seventeenth-century Baroque period. They are present in sacred and secular architecture rolling and gamboling through churches and palaces, supporting and framing the sculptures of both religious and allegorical subjects. Their antecedents were angelic in the Christian religion, and in pagan antiquity Cupid or Eros was the agent for the arousal of sexual desire. The eighteenth-century French painter François Boucher (1703-1770), strongly influenced by Italian painting during his studies in Italy, painted most of his classical subjects with chubby putti emphasizing the representation of amorous desire. In the Meissen figures the ‘costumed cupids’ and ‘putti in disguise’ are coy versions of the manufactory’s adult figures in which the erotic signification of the cupid figure is suppressed by the overlaid disguise.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; On Cupid see Grafton, A., Most, G.W., Settis, S., eds. 2010, The Classical Tradition, pp. 244-246.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, p.470-471.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1760; 1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1993.0447.03
accession number: 1993.0447
catalog number: 1993.0447.03
collector/donor number: 81

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer: D.

Description: TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer: D. 5⅜" 13.7cm; OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1760-1770; SUBJECT:; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1989.0715.01 a,b; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 36 a,b; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “56” impressed on saucer; “52” impressed on cup.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This cup and saucer is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; The cup and saucer have rococo cartouches framed in gold that contain overglaze enamel painted subjects of children in pastoral settings; on the cup two boys and a girl mimic adult behavior and on the saucer a boy pretends to be a soldier as he passes a boy wooing a young girl who sits beside him. The exterior of the cup and interior of the saucer have a purple scale pattern with gold crosses painted inside each scale in imitation of a decorative style developed at the Sèvres manufactory outside Paris, and known at Meissen as the Mosaique pattern.; The children mimic the adult behaviour seen in the paintings of Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Jean Baptiste Pater (1695-1736), and Nicholas Lancret (1690-1743). Watteau developed the subject of the fêtes galantes from the outdoor entertainments in private pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society in retreat from the conventions of court protocol. His works depicting conversational and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings, where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, struck a chord with the living protagonists.; In the early 1740s the manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the Meissen painters based their “Watteauszenen” (Watteau scenes), and they became so much in demand that eleven painters were appointed to specialize in work on this theme.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, with staffage (figures and animals) and Watteau scenes were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. The Mosaique pattern was painted by a worker who specialized in this type of decoration, and young women who were employed at the manufactory following the Seven Years War (1756-1763) were often assigned to this work – the Mosaikmalerinnen. Ornamental gold painting and polishing on this cup and saucer was the work of another specialist in the painting division.; On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.; On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 344-345.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1989.0715.01ab
catalog number: 1989.0715.01ab
accession number: 1989.0715
collector/donor number: 36

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1769; 1770 - 1775

ID Number: 1983.0047.03
accession number: 1983.0047
catalog number: 1983.0047.03

TITLE: Meissen figure of a girl with flowersMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 3¼" 8.3 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750-1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomes

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a girl with flowers; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3¼" 8.3 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.33; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 72; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in blue on unglazed base.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; The figure is from the series of miniature cupids, although she has no wings. She was modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) or Friedrich Elias Meyer (1724-1785). She is dressed as a gardener in a gardener’s hat and holds a bouquet of flowers.; Many of the child and cupid figures are diminutive versions of adult subjects, especially gardeners, earlier modeled by Kaendler and again retouched and repaired by Acier in the 1760s. Child musicians, vintners and street traders (see the pastry seller 1993.447.03), children impersonating characters from the Italian Comedy (see 1987.0896.31), children dancing, are common themes. Drawings by, and engravings after, the French painter François Boucher, were the models for many of the child figures, especially the pastoral subjects and flower girls.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; (Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, p.472-473.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1987.0896.33
catalog number: 1987.0896.33
accession number: 1987.0896
collector/donor number: 72

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1740 - 1760

ID Number: 1977.0334.13B
accession number: 1977.0334
catalog number: 1977.0334.13B

Eve Van Cortlandt's fine white linen quilted counterpane is one of the earliest dated American quilts in existence. The date, "1760" and her initials, "E V C," are embroidered in blue silk cross-stitch on the quilt lining.

Description: Eve Van Cortlandt's fine white linen quilted counterpane is one of the earliest dated American quilts in existence. The date, "1760" and her initials, "E V C," are embroidered in blue silk cross-stitch on the quilt lining. Quilted with white linen thread, a delicate pattern of flowers, feathery stems, and low open baskets surround a central quatrefoil medallion. The design is set off by a background of quilted parallel lines just one-eighth inch apart.; Eve was born on May 22, 1736, to Frederick Van Cortlandt and Francena Jay each from families of wealthy and prominent New York landowners. She made her quilt for her dower chest while living in the family home. In 1761, Eve married the Honorable Henry White, a businessman and a member of the King’s Council of the Royal Colony of New York. He became president of the New York Chamber of Commerce in 1772 and remained loyal to the King of England during the Revolution.; When the British evacuated New York in 1783, Henry moved his family to England. Henry White died in London in 1786, and Eve returned to America as a widow, most likely to be near two of her children who lived in New York. Of their five children, two sons were in the British service and remained in London, as did one daughter. Eve died in 1836 at the age of one hundred, having witnessed a century of historic events. Since 1897, the family home in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx has been a museum.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1760

quilter: Van Cortlandt, Eve

ID Number: 1979.0184.01
catalog number: 1979.0184.01
accession number: 1979.0184

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1740 - 1760
Date made: DELETE

ID Number: 1977.0334.13A
accession number: 1977.0334
catalog number: 1977.0334.13A

TITLE: Meissen figure of a gardenerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 4⅛" 10.5 cm.OBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750-1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic Fur

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a gardener; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 4⅛" 10.5 cm.; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.08; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 71; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in blue on unglazed base.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he first 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.; Meissen’s figures of gardeners appeared more commonly in the 1750s. Some of the figures are far too finely dressed to be serious gardeners, and the models were often based on the prints and drawings after works by artists like Antoine Watteau and François Boucher, with more refined modeling in response to the rococo style. Peter Reinicke (1715-1768) modeled several gardening subjects and these figures possibly formed part of the decorated dessert table at court banquets. Designed by the court confectioners the figures stood in elaborate gardens constructed out of a variety of materials, but the artificial did not displace natural flowers, both cut and potted they were in constant demand at court for table and interior decoration.; Gardeners were stock characters in many eighteenth-century plays and operas; like house servants they observed the lives of their masters and mistresses, sometimes becoming entangled in the plot as in Pierre-August Caron de Beaumarchais’s (1732-1799) controversial Marriage of Figaro of 1784. Gardening in eighteenth-century Europe was a lucrative commercial business for those engaged in the supply of seeds and plants to satisfy the increasing demand for stock to fill a country estate, a modest town or country garden, and even a window box in a city center. Global trade and exploration brought new and exotic plants to Europe that generated enthusiasm for gardening and hothouse cultivation.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.; On the global collectors who brought non-native plants to European and American gardens see Stuart, D.C., 2002, The Plants that Shaped Our Gardens.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 460-461.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1992.0427.08
accession number: 1992.0427
catalog number: 1992.0427.08
collector/donor number: 71

TITLE: Meissen figure of Cupid with wigstandMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 3⅜", 8.5 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750-1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDome

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of Cupid with wigstand; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3⅜", 8.5 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.17; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 281; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: None; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; The Meissen cupids, ‘costumed cupids ‘or putti in disguise, represent a large group of about eighty figures modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in the 1750s and remodeled by Michel Victor Acier1736-1799) after the Seven Years War in 1764. Usually, but not always, identified by the presence of wings on their backs, cupids represent many of the trades and artisanal activities, the Italian Comedy characters, and allegorical subjects of the larger figures. This figure features the artisan trade of the wigmaker.; Cupids, or putti, tumble through the skies in Italian paintings of the seventeenth-century Baroque period. They are present in sacred and secular architecture rolling and gamboling through churches and palaces, supporting and framing the sculptures of both religious and allegorical subjects. Their antecedents were angelic in the Christian religion, and in pagan antiquity Cupid or Eros was the agent for the arousal of sexual desire. The eighteenth-century French painter François Boucher (1703-1770), strongly influenced by Italian painting during his studies in Italy, painted most of his classical subjects with chubby putti emphasizing the representation of amorous desire.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors .; On Cupid see Grafton, A., Most, G.W., Settis, S., eds. 2010, The Classical Tradition, pp.244-246.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp.474-475.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1992.0427.17
accession number: 1992.0427
catalog number: 1992.0427.17
collector/donor number: 281

TITLE: Meissen coffeepotMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.

Description: TITLE: Meissen coffeepot; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: H. 9¼"; OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.13 a,b; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 198 a,b; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in inderglaze blue; “N” or “2” incised.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.; 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 shape of the coffeepot is based on contemporary silver models and it is painted in polychrome overglaze enamels with sprays of naturalistic flowers.; 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 the earlier style of 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 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 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. In the late eighteenth century flower painters were even busier and consumer preference 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.; 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 was usually served by a senior female member of the family, often in an informal gathering in the family’s private apartments. Tea and sugar were expensive items and kept under lock and key by the mistress of the house or a housekeeper. Coffee was more popular in Germany than tea, but most services included a coffeepot and a teapot. 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 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 coffee see Ukers, W. H., 1922, All AboutCoffee; 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.400-401.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1992.0427.13ab
catalog number: 1992.0427.13ab
accession number: 1992.0427
collector/donor number: 198

TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucersMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cups: H.2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucers: D.

Description: TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucers; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: Cups: H.2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucers: D. 5⅜" 13.7cm; OBJECT NAME: Pair of cups and saucers; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT:; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1989.0715.04 Aab, Bab; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 207 Aab, 208 Bab; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “63” impressed on saucer A; “17” impressed on saucer B.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.; This pair of cups and saucers 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.; In the work of French artist Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) we see the development of the fêtes galantes based on the outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol. Watteau’s works depicted conversational, theatrical, and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, and they struck a chord with living protagonists.; In the early 1740s the manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the Meissen painters based their Watteauszenen (Watteau scenes), and they became so much in demand that eleven enamel painters were appointed to specialize in these subjects. In this example figures like those seen in the work of Watteau and his followers dance or play musical instruments framed by cartouches of foliage and trellis work.; The figure on the saucer (207 Aab) of a solitary man playing a guitar can be seen on another item in the Hans Syz Collection, a coffeepot (ID number 1983.0565.46), but there the man is not alone, and stands serenading a seated woman in a parkland setting. The subject has its origins in a painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) titled L’Enchanteur in which the young man playing a guitar serenades and attempts to engage the interest of two women seated in a park while another male figure stands in the shadows behind them. The subject was engraved by Benoît Audran II (1698-1772). There is a Meissen saucer with the same subject in the collection of Constance I. and Ralph H. Wark at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida. See Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum and Art Gallery (The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens and D.Giles Ltd: Jacksonville FL and London UK, 2011) p.415.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, with staffage (figures and animals) and Watteau scenes were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. Ornamental gold painting was the work of another specialist in the painting division.; On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.; On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 346-347.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1989.0715.04Aab
accession number: 1989.0715
catalog number: 1989.0715.04Aab
collector/donor number: 207

TITLE: Meissen figure of a dancing girlMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 3¼" 8.3 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1750-1760SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic F

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a dancing girl; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3¼" 8.3 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.09; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 73; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: None; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he first 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 little figure dancing in a short tunic gathered into a band at her waist may belong to the ‘costumed cupid’ series, or ‘putti in disguise’. Her clothing suggests representation of one of the nationalities of Eastern Europe or the Balkans, a series also modeled in adult figures. The modeler may be Friedrich Elias Meyer (1724-1785) engaged to work at Meissen by Johann Joachim Kaendler(1706-1775) in 1748.; Many of the child and cupid figures are diminutive versions of adult subjects, especially gardeners, earlier modeled by Kaendler and again retouched and repaired by Acier in the 1760s. Child musicians, vintners and street traders (see the pastry seller 1993.447.03), children impersonating characters from the Italian Comedy (see 1987.0896.31), children dancing, are common themes. Drawings by, and engravings after, the French painter François Boucher, were the models for many of the child figures, especially the pastoral subjects and flower girls.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 474-475.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1992.0427.09
accession number: 1992.0427
catalog number: 1992.0427.09

TITLE: Meissen figure of a lute playerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: 7½" 19.1 cmOBJECT NAME: FigurePLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: 1765SUBJECT: The Hans Syz CollectionArtDomestic Furnis

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a lute player; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 7½" 19.1 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1765; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.03; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 23; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; three dashes in iron red.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; This figure is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.; The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.; This figure is from the popular series of pastoral subjects, and the "shepherd” dressed as a courtier plays a lute with a spotted dog standing under his legs. Modeled by Carl Christoph Punct (died in Meissen 1765) the figure was probably based on French engravings and the Meissen modelers produced these subjects close in time to the Cris de Paris figures and the "Galant Orchestra".; The Saxon court, following the French court at Versailles, had a particular fondness for pastoral themes in its entertainments, and very popular were the pastoral plays performed in Count Heinrich von Brühl’s private theater in the Dresden Zwinger, the Mingottisches Theater. The pastorale began as a literary form in the sixteenth century, and was adapted for music and dance performances in the court masques of the renaissance and baroque periods.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.; The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold. It is likely the figure had a companion, a shepherdess, and figures of this kind were collected for display in cabinets later in the eighteenth century.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; On eighteenth-century music and theatrical life in Dresden see Petrick, R., 2011, Dresdens bürgerliches Musik-und Theaterleben im 18. Jahrhundert.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp.462-463.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1765; 1765

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1992.0427.03
accession number: 1992.0427
catalog number: 1992.0427.03
collector/donor number: 23

TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucersMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cups: H.2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucers: D.

Description: TITLE: Meissen: Pair of cups and saucers; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: Cups: H.2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucers: D. 5⅜" 13.7cm; OBJECT NAME: Pair of cups and saucers; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT:; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1989.0715.04 Aab, Bab; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 207 Aab, 208 Bab; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “63” impressed on saucer A; “17” impressed on saucer B.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.; This pair of cups and saucers 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.; In the work of French artist Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) we see the development of the fêtes galantes based on the outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol. Watteau’s works depicted conversational, theatrical, and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, and they struck a chord with living protagonists.; In the early 1740s the manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the Meissen painters based their Watteauszenen (Watteau scenes), and they became so much in demand that eleven enamel painters were appointed to specialize in these subjects. In this example figures like those seen in the work of Watteau and his followers dance or play musical instruments framed by cartouches of foliage and trellis work.; The figure on the saucer (207 Bab) of a solitary man playing a guitar can be seen on another item in the Hans Syz Collection, a coffeepot (ID number 1983.0565.46), but there the man is not alone, and stands serenading a seated woman in a parkland setting. The subject has its origins in a painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) titled L’Enchanteur in which the young man playing a guitar serenades and attempts to engage the interest of two women seated in a park while another male figure stands in the shadows behind them. The subject was engraved by Benoît Audran II (1698-1772). There is a Meissen saucer with the same subject in the collection of Constance I. and Ralph H. Wark at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida. See Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum and Art Gallery (The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens and D.Giles Ltd: Jacksonville FL and London UK, 2011) p.415.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, with staffage (figures and animals) and Watteau scenes were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. Ornamental gold painting was the work of another specialist in the painting division.; On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.; On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 346-347.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1989.0715.04Bab
accession number: 1989.0715
catalog number: 1989.0715.04Bab
collector/donor number: 208

TITLE: Meissen milk pot and coverMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: H.

Description: TITLE: Meissen milk pot and cover; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: H. 6⅛" 15.6cm; OBJECT NAME: Milk pot; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT:; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 67.1043.a,b; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1180; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “63” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: The Art Exchange, New York, 1961.; This milk pot 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 pear-shaped milk pot has a scene of a leopard attacking a horse ridden by a man in oriental apparel. A cub lies to the right foreground of the scene and the decapitated body of a man lies on the left. Scenes of animals fighting one another are on the reverse side. On the cover we can see a stag and a hunting dog. Painted for the most part in overglaze purple enamel there are a few accents in other colors with gold decoration on the handle, spout, and rim.; Animal subjects, especially hunting scenes, were specialist genres for many artists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since the sixteenth century European infiltration into distant continents brought awareness of animal species that fed the desire to collect wild creatures, alive or dead, for the menageries and cabinets of curiosities of the educated and ruling elites. In Dresden, court entertainment included the bloody spectacle of watching wild animals fight until death, not at all unlike the spectacles of the ancient Roman world. Artists like Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) began to focus on the drama of animal and human encounters in which viewers could engage with the psychological pressure of danger through imagination. The images on this milk jug represent the struggle between predatory animals, a lion and a leopard on the reverse and an imminent struggle between the man on horseback and the animal. A subspecies of leopard, the Anatolian pars is native to Turkey.; To present day sensibilities the grisly subjects represented here may seem out of place on a tea and coffee service associated with polite social rituals, but eighteenth-century sensibilities and interests were different in many respects from those of today. People of all classes took a full-bloodied interest in violent events, from the military battle to the public execution, and vicarious engagement took place through the visual arts, storytelling, popular theater and street spectacles. For the intellectually curious animals were objects of study in attempts to understand better the nature of human beings in relation to the wild.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, figures, and animals were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. Ornamental gold painting was the responsibility of another specialist worker.; On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.; On animal imagery see Silver, L., "World of Wonder: Exotic Animals in European Imagery, 1515-1650", in Cuneo, P. F. (ed.), 2014, Animals and Early Modern Identity, pp.291-327.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 316-317.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.67.1043ab
catalog number: 67.1043ab
collector/donor number: 1180
accession number: 276588

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