Small, Aesthetic-style, mixed metal teapot with applied decoration of maple leaves and a spiraling maple key on opposite sides of its apple-shaped body, and a beetle below the stubby conical spout; fixed, tall bracket handle has a smaller maple key at top front corner. Inset circular cover is topped by a ribbed knop and small boss at edge. Flat bottom with four raised feet. Body perforated at spout. Bottom underside is fully marked with "TIFFANY & CO" struck incuse above pattern, order, and hammering and mounting design numbers.
Raised bulbous baluster-shaped teapot with overall chased and repousse grapevine decoration on four cast feet of looped branches of blooming flowers. Double-domed, hinged lid is topped by a cast asymetrical floral bud on looped stem atop flowers and leaves. Band of angular twisted branches at rim. High-loop C-curve handle and S-curve spout also cast as branches or woody trunks wrapped with budding and blooming floral vines; handle is pinned into ivory insulators. Body perforated at spout. Underside of rounded bottom struck above and below centerpoint with Gorham trademark of a lion passant facing left, an anchor, and the raised roman letter "G", all in clipped-corner surrounds, and "COIN" in incuse roman letters. Interior stained. From a six-piece coffee and tea service, 1988.0569.01-.06.
Raised bulbous baluster-shaped teapot with overall chased and repousse grapevine decoration on four cast feet of looped branches of blooming flowers. Double-domed, hinged lid is topped by a cast cluster of grapes on looped stem. Band of angular twisted branches at rim. High-loop C-curve handle and S-curve spout also cast as branches or woody trunks wrapped with budding and blooming floral vines; handle is pinned into ivory insulators. Body perforated at spout. Underside of rounded bottom struck above and below centerpoint with Gorham trademark of a lion passant facing left, an anchor, and the raised roman letter "G", all in clipped-corner surrounds, and "COIN" in incuse roman letters; "31/7" and three lines of geometric shapes are faintly scratched above and to right. Clean interior. From a six-piece coffee and tea service, 1988.0569.01-.06.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
This teapot is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the collector and dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in psychiatry and the research of human behavior. He believed that cultural artifacts have an important role to play in enhancing our awareness and understanding of human creativity and its communication among peoples. His collection grew to represent this conviction.
The invention of Meissen porcelain, declared over three hundred years ago early in 1709, was a collective achievement that represents an early modern precursor to industrial chemistry and materials science. The porcelains we see in our museum collections, made in the small town of Meissen in the German States, were the result of an intense period of empirical research. Generally associated with artistic achievement of a high order, Meissen porcelain was also a technological achievement in the development of inorganic, non-metallic materials.
Early in Meissen’s history Johann Friedrich Böttger’s team searched for success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of the Chinese and Japanese prototypes in the Dresden collections. Böttger’s porcelain, however, was fired at a temperature higher than Chinese porcelain or German stoneware. As in China, the underglaze blue pigment was painted on the clay surface before firing, but when glazed and fired the cobalt sank into the porcelain body and ran into the glaze instead of maintaining a clear image like the Chinese originals. The Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II was not satisfied with the inferior product. Success in underglaze blue painting eluded Böttger’s team until Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775) appropriated a workable formula developed by the metallurgist David Köhler (1673-1723). Success required adjustment to the porcelain paste by replacing the alabaster flux with feldspar and adding a percentage of porcelain clay (kaolin) to the cobalt pigment. Underglaze blue painting became a reliable and substantial part of the manufactory’s output in the 1730s.
The “rock and bird” pattern seen on this teapot was adapted by the Meissen manufactory from Japanese porcelain models made in Arita. Japanese enamel painters on porcelain imitated Chinese designs and trade in porcelain between the two countries was extensive before the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, but the Japanese also developed their own style in motifs taken from Chinese sources. Several European porcelain manufactories imitated Meissen’s imitation of the Japanese prototype of a flying bird and flowering tree beside a rock. The double loops circling the opening of the teapot are common to many of the objects with the “rock and bird” pattern.
Underglaze blue painting requires skills similar to a watercolor artist. There are no second chances, and once the pigment touches the clay or biscuit-fired surface it cannot be eradicated easily. Many of Meissen’s underglaze blue designs were, and still are, “pounced” onto the surface of the vessel before painting. Pouncing is a long used technique in which finely powdered charcoal or graphite is allowed to fall through small holes pierced through the outlines of a paper design, thereby serving as a guide for the painter and maintaining a relative standard in the component parts of Meissen table services.
On underglaze blue painting at Meissen see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 22-23.
J. Carswell, 1985, Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and its impact on the Western World.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 252-253.
Ovoid teapot with incurved neck and low-domed, hinged lid topped by a cross-and-flared-square finial on four legs ending in lion's paw feet; flat-chased mimosa foliage on body and a curvilinear cross design on lid. Sharply-angled handle, square in section and pinned into thin insulators, has a scroll-ended upper terminal and square-and-scroll lower terminal. Circular lion's masks at top corner of handle, sides of S curve spout and middle of leg mounts and sides of the S curve spout. Convex strainer attached inside body at spout. Underside of flat bottom is struck incuse with a circular mark containing a pointed shield with balanced scales bordered by "MERIDEN / B. COMPANY" in sans serif letters; "PATENT APPLIED FOR" is stamped above and "1877" and "5" are below. From a six-piece coffee and tea service, 1984.0424.13-.18.
(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, 1945.
This teapot in the form of a monkey with young 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.
Molded in the shape of a monkey mother with two young forming the spout and handle, the model was the work of Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) and is mentioned in his work book entry for July 1735 (Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, Edition Leipzig, 2002, p.33). Several of these teapots exist, but most are painted. The cover for the bowl held by the young monkey on its mother’s back is missing.
Monkeys were a common sight in the palaces and great houses of the eighteenth century. Popular pets, the belts worn by the monkeys in this teapot represent the means by which these animals were secured to a chain. They entertained city and country people at the seasonal fairs and festivals, teased them on the city streets, and performed tricks for their amusement under the direction of their human captors, so making them familiar to people across society. Monkeys were part of the trade in exotic animals from Africa, Central and South America, and Asia, and their fate in Europe was often to sicken and die when separated from their natural habitat in the ownership of Europeans ignorant of their needs.
The teapot is an example of the popular series of vessels in the form of animals produced by European porcelain and earthenware manufacturers in the eighteenth century, although the zoomorphic vessel has a much longer and distinguished history that can be traced back to antiquity.
An interesting account of the animal trade is in Robbins, L. E., 2002, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Paris.
For a fine example of a painted version of this piece see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 492.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 272-273.
Pear-shaped or "Queen Anne" teapot on short foot ring with tall, bell-domed, hinged lid topped by wood button knop; upper part of hinge is a flat, rectangular block. Spurred, S-curve handle has cylindrical sockets; faceted, S-scroll spout has flat, horizontal oval lip. Lid decorated with three sets of scored lines and roulette work at edge. Body perforated at spout. Underside of flat bottom struck with an incuse "X" above maker's touch mark; inside has spiral turning mark and possibly an effaced touch at center.
Maker is Thomas Danforth Boardman (1784-1873) of Litchfield and Hartford, CT; working, 1804-circa 1860.