Meissen plate (Hausmaler)
Meissen plate (Hausmaler)
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- Description
- TITLE: Meissen plate (Hausmaler)
- MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
- PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
- MEASUREMENTS: D. 9½" 24.2 cm.
- OBJECT NAME: Plate
- PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
- DATE MADE: 1740-1750
- SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
- Art
- Domestic Furnishing
- Industry and Manufacturing
- CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
- ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.44
- COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 716
- ACCESSION NUMBER:
- (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
- MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “6” or “9” impressed.
- PURCHASED FROM: Otto Buel Gallery, Lucerne, Switzerland, 1947.
- This plate is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
- The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in Germany, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
- The plate was made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
- Bayreuth was the German city in which the Hausmalerei workshop of Johann Friedrich Metsch (1706-1766) was situated, and he is recorded also as painting on porcelain in Dresden in about 1731. After the Meissen manufactory refused to supply him with blank pieces he moved to Bayreuth and worked for the faience manufactory there. In his own workshop he painted on white Meissen vessels and on porcelain imported from Jingdezhen in China. This plate is typical of his style that featured landscapes, floral designs, harbor scenes and mythological subjects, often painted in purple monochrome and framed by elaborate scrollwork like the shell motif seen here. The sources for his subjects were the numerous ornamental prints circulating in artisan workshops, and prints after paintings by Dutch, French, and Italian artists.
- On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46; Pazaurek G.E., 1925, Deutsche Fayence und Porzellan Hausmaler.
- Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 544-545.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Object Name
- plate
- Object Type
- plate
- date made
- ca 1740-1750
- 1740-1750
- maker
- Meissen Manufactory
- place made
- Germany: Saxony, Meissen
- Physical Description
- blue underglaze (overall color)
- hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
- polychrome and gold (overall color)
- Italianate landscape, Hausmaler (overall style)
- Measurements
- overall: 9 1/2 in; 24.13 cm
- overall: 1 7/16 in x 9 1/2 in; 3.65125 cm x 24.13 cm
- ID Number
- 1987.0896.44
- catalog number
- 1987.0896.44
- accession number
- 1987.0896
- collector/donor number
- 716
- See more items in
- Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
- The Hans C. Syz Collection
- Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection
- Art
- Domestic Furnishings
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
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