Meissen cup and saucer: one of a pair

Meissen cup and saucer: one of a pair

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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
Object Name
cup
saucer
date made
ca 1750-1760
1750-1760
maker
Meissen Manufactory
place made
Germany: Saxony, Meissen
Physical Description
watteau figure (overall description of decoration)
blue (cup color)
blue (saucer color)
hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
Watteau scenes (overall style)
Measurements
cup: 2 5/8 in; 6.6675 cm
saucer: 5 3/8 in; 13.6525 cm
overall cup: 2 11/16 in x 3 7/8 in x 2 7/8 in; 6.82625 cm x 9.8425 cm x 7.3025 cm
overall saucer: 1 1/8 in x 5 1/4 in; 2.8575 cm x 13.335 cm
ID Number
1989.0715.04Aab
accession number
1989.0715
catalog number
1989.0715.04Aab
collector/donor number
207
subject
Manufacturing
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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