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: Art

Minton porcelain cabinet plate

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1879
ID Number
CE.P-288
catalog number
P-288
accession number
225282

Tiffany vase

Favrile glass, made of a dark opaque glass. Decorated with designs formed of yellow and silver lines, something like the leaves of the wild turnip on a ground of dark metallic iridescent luster. Form: A globular body, the shoulder deeply indented in four places.
Description (Brief)
Favrile glass, made of a dark opaque glass. Decorated with designs formed of yellow and silver lines, something like the leaves of the wild turnip on a ground of dark metallic iridescent luster. Form: A globular body, the shoulder deeply indented in four places. The top depressed, a short cylindrical neck. Purchased Charles Tiffany, $20.00.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1893 - 96
maker
Tiffany Glass & Decorating Company, or Tiffany Studios
ID Number
CE.96443
catalog number
96443
accession number
30453
maker number
4914

Meissen dish: from the Stadholder Service

TITLE: Meissen dishMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: D. 13½" 34.2cmOBJECT NAME: DishPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: ca.
Description
TITLE: Meissen dish
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 13½" 34.2cm
OBJECT NAME: Dish
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1763-1774
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.48
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 558
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords with dot in underglaze blue; “34” impressed (former’s number); “///” incised; “Rotterdam” in black overglaze.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1945.
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 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 dish comes from a large dinner service that was in the ownership of Prince Willem V of Orange and Nassau (1748-1806) who was the last hereditary Stadholder, or governor, of the Dutch United Provinces including the colonies in Indonesia and South Africa. The service appears to have been a gift from the Dutch United East India Company (Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie), an institution of which Prince Willem was the chief governor.
The service was painted in onglaze enamels with scenes after topographical prints of sites in the Netherlands and Batavia (present day Jakarta), the Indonesian headquarters for the Dutch East India Company. The subject on this plate is Rotterdam harbor. Most of the prints that the Meissen painters copied quite faithfully were relatively contemporary eighteenth century works, many of them published in Amsterdam after drawings and paintings by artists like Cornelis Pronk (1691-1759), Jan de Beyer (1703-1785) and Abraham de Haen (1707-1748), many featuring sites associated with the Dutch East India Company including the country seats of various Company officials.
Prince Willem went into exile in England in 1795 when hostilities broke out with France. It appears that he took the service with him but was obliged to sell it before he left the country. In 1823 a total of 363 pieces was sold at the auction of the William Beckford collection, but in 1868 it was sold again in 75 lots at Christie’s of London, and items can now be found in many European and North American collections.
For a full account of this service see Abraham L. den Blaauwen, The Meissen Service of Stadholder Willem V, Apeldoorn and Zwolle: Palais Het Loo and Waanders Uitgevers, 1993.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp.348-349.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1763-1774
1763-1774
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.48
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.48
collector/donor number
558

Clichy Paperweight

In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter.
Description (Brief)
In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
The French firm, Verrerie de Clichy, began operation after merging with another local glassworks in 1837. The height of paperweight production at the firm was 1846 to 1857.
This Clichy glass paperweight contains closely packed multi-color canes with two pink-and-white, and four green-and-white Rose canes.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1845-1850
maker
Clichy
ID Number
CE.65.483
catalog number
65.483
accession number
264964
collector/donor number
128

Meissen porcelain cup and saucer

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1763-1774
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-50ab
catalog number
P-50ab
accession number
225282

Clichy Paperweight

In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter.
Description (Brief)
In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
The French firm, Verrerie de Clichy, began operation after merging with another local glassworks in 1837. The height of paperweight production at the firm was 1846 to 1857.
A deep moss-green background sets off the large center pink and green Rose cane and the multi-colored pastry mold canes (millefiori canes that flare at the base) on this Clichy paperweight.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1845-1850
maker
Clichy
ID Number
CE.65.468
catalog number
65.468
collector/donor number
98
accession number
264964

bowl, footed

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c. 1906
maker
Northwood Glass Company
ID Number
CE.73.107
catalog number
73.107
accession number
309646

Meissen vase and cover with Far East pattern

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1730-1736
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-1051ab
catalog number
P-1051ab
accession number
225282

Meissen porcelain teapot and cover

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1763 -1774
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-716Bab
accession number
225282
catalog number
P-716Bab

Sèvres porcelain cup and saucer (part of a service)

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1840
ID Number
CE.P-808Dab
catalog number
P-808Dab
accession number
225282

Meissen bowl

MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; impressed Maltese cross in a circle (former's mark).PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1952.PROVENANCE: Ex Coll. Dr.
Description
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; impressed Maltese cross in a circle (former's mark).
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1952.
PROVENANCE: Ex Coll. Dr. Max Strauss, Vienna, Austria.
This rinsing bowl is part of the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the collector and New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962), formerly of Frankfurt-am-Main in Germany. Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychoanalysis and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
This bowl was once part of a tea and coffee service onto which were painted topographical scenes of Saxon places of interest. Featured on the bowl is the Königstein Fortress, built on the top of the rocky prominence in the center left of the image, which lies south of Dresden close to the river Elbe seen on the right. The fortress, which still exists, stands on an outcrop of sandstone sculpted over millenia by the waters of the Elbe, and it is situated in a region unique to this part of south-eastern Germany known as Saxon Switzerland, later to become a landscape fascinating to early nineteenth century painters like Caspar David Friedrich. The second painting depicts the Sonnenstein castle above the town of Pirna, which lies south-east of Dresden on the banks of the Elbe. In the sixteenth century Pirna flourished as a merchant town, and was a center for Protestant minorities seeking refuge from persecution in Catholic Central Europe. Bernardo Belotto/Caneletto (1721-1780), the nephew of Giovanni Antonio Caneletto (1697-1768), his pupil and assistant in Venice before leaving to study in Rome, painted several scenes of Pirna, but at the Meissen Manufactory both these images, painted in onglaze enamels, were after engravings executed in 1726 by Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752). Thiele painted many landscapes of Saxon sites, and among his pupils were artists who later developed what became known as the Dresden landscape school, active until well into the nineteenth century. The bowl is an example of Meissen’s use of sources from the work of contemporary artists, an exchange made possible through the increasing volume of prints supplied to the manufactory. (Marx, H., Die Schoensten Ansichten aus Sachsen: Johann Alexander Thiele (1685-1752) zum 250 Todestag, 2002).
The bowl has a sea-green ground color, and the images in the reserves are painted in polychrome enamels. The interior and exterior gold scrollwork and foot ring frame the piece. The interior has another miniature landscape that remains unidentified and is probably imaginary, surrounded by elaborate scrollwork in purple and iron-red enamels and gold. When part of a tea and coffee service, the bowl was used to take the last dregs of a beverage before a cup was rinsed and refilled. It is likely that a service of this kind was not much used in a practical sense, but put on display for admiration.
The sea-green ground color was one of several enamel color grounds developed at Meissen and applied to the surface of the glaze by flicking a brush loaded with enamel color onto a sticky vegetable gum applied over the glaze; reserves were masked out preserving the white surface for the painted image. The gum evaporated in the firing and the color fused into the softened glaze. Later ground laying techniques used powdered color applied with a pad, usually made of cotton fabric or suede, which had the advantage of producing a more even density and depth of color. In today's ceramic industry, solid color grounds are most often applied with automated screening techniques, or in studio with a spray gun powered by a compressor.
See a milk pot from this service in Pietsch, U., Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, 2011, p.379; for a sugar bowl see The Rita and Fritz Markus Collection of European Ceramics and Enamels, Museum of FIne Arts, Boston, 1984, p. 128.
Syz, H., Rückert, R., Miller, J. J. II., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 292-293.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1735
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1983.0565.43
collector/donor number
893
accession number
1983.0565
catalog number
1983.0565.43

Whitall Tatum Paperweight

In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter.
Description (Brief)
In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
Whitall, Tatum & Company of Millville, New Jersey was formed in 1901 and employed first-rate craftsmen who created outstanding paperweights.
This Whitall, Tatum and Company pedestal paperweight features an opaque, rich yellow twelve-petal flower, freely suspended in a clear glass ball. The pointed center flower petals suggest that it is the work of glassmaker Emil Stanger.
date made
early 1900s
maker
Whitall, Tatum and Company
ID Number
CE.60.97
catalog number
60.97
accession number
211475

Clichy Paperweight

In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter.
Description (Brief)
In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
The French firm, Verrerie de Clichy, began operation after merging with another local glassworks in 1837. The height of paperweight production at the firm was 1846 to 1857.
A purple and yellow Pansy decorates this clear glass Clichy paperweight.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1845-1850
maker
Clichy
ID Number
CE.65.496
catalog number
65.496
accession number
264964
collector/donor number
185

William. B. Reed

Black and white print; bust portrait of a man (William Bradford Reed). Facsimile of sitter's signature is below the image.Currently not on view
Description (Brief)
Black and white print; bust portrait of a man (William Bradford Reed). Facsimile of sitter's signature is below the image.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
ca 1855
depicted
Reed, William Bradford
maker
Wagner & McGuigan
Traubel, Morris H.
ID Number
DL.60.3128
catalog number
60.3128
accession number
228146

One of the first examples of optical glass made in the USA

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1914
est. 1899
ID Number
CE.240
catalog number
240
accession number
57114

plate

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.75.130W
catalog number
75.130W
accession number
317832

cup, demi-tasse

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.75.130BG
catalog number
75.130BG
accession number
317832

Meissen porcelain knife handle

TITLE: Six knivesMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Handle: L.
Description
TITLE: Six knives
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Handle: L. 3¼" 8.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Knives
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: 1992.0427.18 a-f
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 289 a-f
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None on the porcelain handles; on the silver blades, “H.M.” stamped, and St. Petersburg hallmarks of 1790.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
These knives 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 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 pistol-shaped handles painted with German flowers (deutsche Blumen) in overglaze enamel, there is in addition a molded basket weave pattern in relief forming a collar on the upper haft and butt end of the knives.
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 German flowers Meissen painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s publication, the Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745), in which many of the plates were engraved from drawings by the outstanding botanical illustrator Georg Dionys Ehret (1708-1770). Specialist gold painters applied ornament on the rims.
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 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.
The handles were usually sold with a dinner service and the metal blades made to order by a silversmith local to the purchaser. Meissen flatware was often gilded.
On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
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.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 396-397.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
mid 18th century
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1992.0427.18F
accession number
1992.0427
catalog number
1992.0427.18F
collector/donor number
289

Meissen porcelain three-footed cup and cover

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1720-1725
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
CE.P-731ab
catalog number
P-731ab
accession number
225282

Pitcher, "Apotheosis"

This transfer printed creamware pitcher is decorated with a print of a ship under sail on one side and of the Apotheosis of George Washington on the other. Finally, under the spout is a floral oval with barrels at its base and the initials “PL” in the center.
Description
This transfer printed creamware pitcher is decorated with a print of a ship under sail on one side and of the Apotheosis of George Washington on the other. Finally, under the spout is a floral oval with barrels at its base and the initials “PL” in the center. Maritime designs are especially common on English-made transfer printed creamware meant for the American market. Stock prints of ships, like the one on this example, were repeatedly used by English ceramics printers. The ship on this pitcher is titled “The Mary.” It is possible the pitcher belonged to a man named John Lilley, who operated in Liverpool and had a wife named Mary. George Washington is the most common figure depicted on English creamware pitchers of this period. His death in 1799 led to an outpouring of commemorative products celebrating his life and mourning his death. The Apotheosis of Washington is a print done by John James Barralet. The print depicts Washington being raised from his tomb by two winged figures representing Immortality and Father Time. At the left are allegorical figures of Faith, Hope, and Charity above a spread winged bald eagle perched on the US shield with a banner reading “E Pluribus Unum” in its beak. Below Washington is an allegorical figure of Liberty and a Native American (representing the Western Hemisphere) seated among Washington’s armor, sword, and a fasces— iconography of his military and political career.
This pitcher is part of the McCauley collection of American themed transfer print pottery. There is no mark on the pitcher to tell us who made it, but it is characteristic of wares made in large volume for the American market in both Staffordshire and Liverpool between 1790 and 1820. Pitchers of this shape, with a cream colored glaze over a pale earthenware clay, known as Liverpool type, were the most common vessels to feature transfer prints with subjects commemorating events and significant figures in the early decades of United States’ history. Notwithstanding the tense relationship between Britain and America, Liverpool and Staffordshire printers and potters seized the commercial opportunity offered them in the production of transfer printed earthenwares celebrating the heroes, the military victories, and the virtues of the young republic, and frequently all of these things at once.
Location
Currently not on view
ID Number
CE.63.151
catalog number
63.151
accession number
248619
collector/donor number
41-319

St. Louis Paperweight

In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter.
Description (Brief)
In the 1700s, paperweights made from textured stone or bronze were part of the writer’s tool kit, which also included a quill pen and stand, inkpot, and blotter. By the mid-1800s, decorative paperweights produced by glassmakers in Europe and the United States became highly desired collectibles.
Decorative glass paperweights reflected the 19th-century taste for intricate, over-the-top designs. Until the spread of textiles colorized with synthetic dyes, ceramics and glass were among the few objects that added brilliant color to a 19th-century Victorian interior. The popularity of these paperweights in the 1800s testifies to the sustained cultural interest in hand craftsmanship during an age of rapid industrialization.
Glass production at Saint Louis was authorized by Louis XV in 1767. By 1782 the firm was creating high quality glass crystal, progressing into pressed glass in the 1800s. St. Louis produced paperweights from 1845 to about 1867.
A lavender, orange, and yellow Pansy on a clear ground decorates this St. Louis glass paperweight. The base features a twenty-four ray star-cut design.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1845-1850
maker
St. Louis
ID Number
CE.65.464
accession number
264964
catalog number
65.464
collector/donor number
81

Paris porcelain cup and saucer

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
c.1815-1820
c.1810, decoration c.1815 -1820
ID Number
CE.P-1073ab.
catalog number
P-1073ab
accession number
225282

French Revolutionary Teapot

This teapot comes from the Alfred Duane Pell Collection in the National Museum of American History, and it is not the kind of luxury article we usually associate with the Sèvres Manufactory.
Description
This teapot comes from the Alfred Duane Pell Collection in the National Museum of American History, and it is not the kind of luxury article we usually associate with the Sèvres Manufactory. In 1795, following the fall and execution of Maximillian Robespierre, France put behind it the horrific year known as the Reign of Terror (September 1793-July 1794), but the country was in a state of economic ruin. The Sèvres Manufactory, situated to the west of Paris towards Versailles, lost royal and aristocratic patronage when the First Republic was declared in 1792, but despite its royal connection the manufactory was saved from closure when the revolutionary National Convention declared that Sèvres porcelain was “one of the glories of France.” Without royal support the manufactory turned to the production of luxury porcelain for foreign markets, and for the domestic market items like this teapot, decorated with emblems affirming revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality, and justice.
The Sèvres Manufactory was then a close community of craft workers, mechanics, and artists, all of whom lived in housing on the manufactory site or close to it. Now a suburb of Paris, eighteenth-century Sèvres was then rural, and a better place to live than in the crowded and unsanitary quarters of the city. Given that the Manufactory was owned by the monarch, and therefore symbolized the institution hated and overthrown by the revolutionaries it is astounding it survived at all. In the chaos that ensued once the Revolution began most Sèvres workers stayed were they were and continued to produce porcelain, but in politically divisive and partisan times there was distrust and uncertainty.
Painted on its surface in enamels colors on one side is the emblem for liberty, the Phrygian cap seen resting on the triangle of equity. The scarlet Phrygian cap adopted during the French Revolution as an emblem of liberty, remains closely associated with France today. The liberty cap has its origins in antiquity with the Phrygian cap seen on this teapot representing to the Greeks the people of Phrygia in Asia Minor, present day Turkey, and it is recognized by its peak, softly folded forwards over the head. It is thought that the cap may have been worn by Phrygians taken captive by the Greeks. In revolutionary America, and in French engravings of heroes of the American Revolution a red soft-peaked cap known as the pileus represented freedom from British tyranny. Of ancient Roman origin the pileus was worn by former slaves given their freedom under the Roman system of manumission. Representing both the captive and the freed slave the Phrygian cap and the Roman pileus became interchangeable in the eighteenth-century emblem of liberty, but for the young American Republic the pileus in particular was a troubling image for those who contested the existence of slavery in the southern states.
On the other side of the teapot is the emblem for the authority of the First French Republic, established in 1792. Known as the Fasces of Roman antiquity this emblem consists of a bundle of wooden rods from which an axe head protrudes representing the unity and judicial authority of the Roman Republic. It was carried before a Roman consul or magistrate by bodyguards known as Lictors. Like the liberty cap, the Fasces represent another emblem appropriated from antiquity in later times of revolutionary political change, and in times of stability; the official seal of the United States Senate has both the liberty cap and the fasces in its design representing freedom and authority.
The teapot is made of hard-paste porcelain, which entered production at Sèvres in the 1770s, although the soft-paste porcelain so characteristic of early Sèvres continued in use until the early 1800s. Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Vendé was the painter and gilder of this piece, identified by the mark V..D.; other marks include the Sèvres insignia and FR entwined for the Republique Française ; see Liana Paredes, Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain 1750-2000, Washington D.C. and London: Hillwood Museum and Gardens Foundation in association with D. Giles Ltd., 2009, p.145.
The lid is a twentieth century replacement for the missing original.
Derek E. Ostergard (ed.), Tamara Préaud et al., The Sévres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry, 1800-1847, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997.
Susan Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light, New York, Faber & Faber Inc., 1999.
Yvonne Korshak, ‘The Liberty Cap as a Revolutionary Symbol in America and France’ in Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Vol 1 No. 2 (Autumn 1987) pp. 52-69.
The Liberty Cap in the Art of the U.S. Capitol, https://www.aoc.gov/blog/liberty-cap-art-us-capito
The teapot is made of hard-paste porcelain, which entered production at Sèvres in the 1770s, although the soft-paste porcelain so characteristic of early Sèvres continued in use until the early 1800s. The lid is a much later replacement for the missing original.
Derek E. Ostergard (ed.), Tamara Préaud et al., The Sévres Porcelain Manufactory: Alexandre Brongniart and the Triumph of Art and Industry, 1800-1847, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997.
Susan Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light, New York, Faber & Faber Inc., 1999.
Yvonne Korshak, ‘The Liberty Cap as a Revolutionary Symbol in America and France’ in Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Vol 1 No. 2 (Autumn 1987) pp. 52-69.
The Liberty Cap in the Art of the U.S. Capitol, https://www.aoc.gov/blog/liberty-cap-art-us-capito
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1795
maker
Sevres
ID Number
CE.P-779ab
catalog number
P-779ab
accession number
225282

Meissen cup and saucer

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucerMAKER: Meissen ManufactoryPHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer L. 5⅜" 13.7cm, W. 4⅞" 12.4cmOBJECT NAME: Cup and saucerPLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, GermanyDATE MADE: ca.
Description
TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer L. 5⅜" 13.7cm, W. 4⅞" 12.4cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1730-1740
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.09ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 435ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” in gold (gold painter’s number).
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
This cup and saucer is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
The quatrefoil shaped cup and saucer has a basket weave design on the exteriors with flowers in relief (erhabene Blumen) enclosed in reserves. On the interiors elaborate scrollwork in purple, iron-red and gold frame waterside subjects in polychrome onglaze enamels. The delicate scrollwork design belongs to the earlier baroque style at Meissen. On the interior of the cup two men in a small boat sail at the entrance to a harbor with buildings in view behind them. On the saucer a man rides a white horse while leading another brown horse beside him. In the background is a coastal landscape with a harbor in the distance.
Sources for enamel painted subjects like these ones came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1720s until the 1750s. The Meissen manufactory accumulated folios of prints, about six to twelve in a set, as well as illustrated books and individual prints after the work of many European artists, especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640). Many of these landscape and waterside scenes were imaginary, and paintings of existing locations were often altered by the artist. Meissen painters were also encouraged to use their imagination in enamel painting using the prints as a guide. These subjects can be seen on items like fans, enameled copper objects, and painted interiors as well as on porcelain and faience. Their appeal lay in the pleasure of contemplating the tranquility and beauty of the landscape, or the fascination with trade represented in the harbor scenes. Printed images enriched people’s lives and a series of prints might take the viewer on a journey, real or imaginary. Prints performed a role in European visual culture later extended by photography and film, and they provided artisans and artists with images, motifs, and patterns applied in many branches of the applied arts.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (figures and animals) were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. Decorative scrollwork was the responsibility of another painter specializing in this form of decoration.
On Meissen sources for enamel painted subjects see Möller, K.A. “ ‘…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on Graphic Originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.84-93; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.
On sets of prints see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 298-299.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1730-1740
1730-1740
maker
Meissen Manufactory
ID Number
1987.0896.09ab
catalog number
1987.0896.09ab
accession number
1987.0896
collector/donor number
435ab

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