This piano was made by Blüthner in Leipzig, Germany, in 1900. It is a grand piano, Model 6, Serial #55501. Accessioned with bench (not-original).
Founded by Julius Blüthner in 1853 in Leipzig, Germany, Blüthner is one of the most respected German piano builders. Blüthner pianos rapidly acquired a sterling reputation, winning numerous prizes at international exhibits, including the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia.
>p>This Model 6 has a version of the ornate “Jubilee” cast-iron plates Blüthner produced from 1898 to 1907. It also has Blüthner’s Aliquot System. This patented system employs an additional fourth string for each of the keys in the instrument’s upper octaves. This string is not struck by the hammers, but vibrates through sympathetic resonance when the other three strings are struck, resulting in an enriched spectrum contributing to the distinctive “Blüthner sound.”
Otto Becker, whose name is inlaid in the piano’s lid flap, was a musical instrument dealer and music publisher in Santiago, Chile. The #55501 remained in Chile until 1986 when it was purchased by Fred Chaffee, a distinguished astronomer and amateur pianist whose career began in 1968 at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was donated to the Smithsonian in 2014 by Fred and Diana Chaffee “in loving memory of Roger G. Kennedy,” who served as Director of the National Museum of American History from 1979 to 1992.
This is a compass in a gimbal mount that can hang from a line. The silvered face reads counterclockwise, and has a raised rim graduated to 30 minutes. There is also a semicircle that hangs vertically from a line, and is graduated to 30 minutes.The signature reads "AUGUST LINGKE & CO FREIBERG IN SA NO 1111." Albert Joseph Seligman (1859-1935) probably bought this instrument in the late 1870s when he studied mining engineering at Freiberg. He probably gave it to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his alma mater, around 1899, when he obtained a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
Wilhelm Friedrich Lingke (1784-1867) was a mathematical instrument maker in Freiberg, Saxony. August Friedrich Lingke (1811-1874) studied at Freiberg University and then worked for his father. He took charge of the business in 1859, trading as August Lingke & Co. Max Hildebrand purchased the firm in 1873, but kept the old name until 1889. The Royal School of Mines in Freiberg attracted many students, foreign as well as German, and many of these students purchased Lingke surveying instruments.
Ref: J. B. Te Pas, “Max Hildebrand, late August Lingke & Co. G.m.b.H.,”Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 58 (1998): 19-21.
This steel measuring tape has a brass case, handle, and folding crank. It measures 25 meters long, and is numbered every meter. The "A. LINGKE & CO IN FREIBERG" inscription refers to an instrument firm that was in business, as such, from 1859 to 1889.
Albert Joseph Seligman (1859-1935) probably bought this tape when he studied mining engineering at Freiberg. He probably donated it to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his alma mater, around 1899, when he obtained a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.
The horizontal circle of this theodolite is beveled, silvered graduated to 20 minutes, and read by opposite verniers to single minutes. The vertical circle is silvered graduated to 20 minutes and read by opposite verniers to single minutes. The inscription reads "AUGUST LINGKE & CO / FREIBERG IN SA / No. 4265".
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords and star in underglaze blue; “83” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
This chocolate pot and cover 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 chocolate pot, based on contemporary metal pots of the period, has a wooden handle mounted in a side socket and a wooden finial on the cover; wooden handles protected hands from the hot surface of the pot when filled with liquid. The finial could be removed and a swizzle stick inserted to raise froth on the hot chocolate and mix it thoroughly. The spout has a scrolled molding.
Hot chocolate, one of the three hot liquors to transform European drinking and social rituals, was more expensive and laborious to prepare than coffee, but nevertheless very popular in affluent society. Usually, chocolate was taken as a breakfast drink for those who could afford such a luxury and the trembleuse cup and saucer was designed for those who took their breakfast in bed, and for invalids for whom chocolate was considered of medicinal value. Although not as numerous as coffee houses, chocolate houses began to appear in European cities in the late seventeenth century. The beverage was very different to the powdered cocoa drinks of today, and was closer to its origin in the cultures of Central and South America, but made more palatable for Europeans with the addition of sugar and cream.
In the late eighteenth century Meissen produced various items reminiscent of the early Meissen Böttger porcelains that were admired for their raised ornament designed originally by the Dresden court goldsmith Johann Jacob Irminger (1635-1724), the so-called Irmingersche Belege. The applied grapevine (Wein-Laub) design seen on this pot and cover was especially favored.
On the practice of drinking hot chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; on the history of coffee houses see Ellis, M. 2011, The Coffee House: A Cultural History; for an exhaustive study of chocolate see Grivetti, L. E., Shapiro, H. Y., 2009, Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 274-275.
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crosssed swords in underglaze blue; “26” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
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 octagonal coffeepot and cover have reserves in white surrounded by a yellow ground. On the pot the reserves contain onglaze enamel painted Indian flowers (indianische Blumen) and a fruiting plant, probably a grape vine that grows close to the base of a rock. A hawk-like bird with half-folded wings picks from the plant. On the lid the two reserves contain sprays of Indian flowers. The Meissen painting division adapted the design from Chinese famille verte onglaze and underglaze enamel painting of the K’ang Hsi period (1662-1722); famille verte refers to that group of Chinese porcelains with a color palette dominated by translucent emerald green enamel pigments. Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1670-1733), collected a large amount of famille verte porcelain from China, and another Meissen pattern (ID# 1983.0565.25), the so-called butterfly pattern (Schmetterlingmuster) was derived from Chinese prototypes.
For additional items in a very similar service see: http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/coffeepot-and-cover-58611.
On famille verte see Valenstein, S. G., 1975 (1989), A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, pp.227-236.
See also Pietsch, U., 2010, Passion for Meissen: The Said and Roswitha Marouf Collection, pp.298-300.
On colored grounds see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 267-274.
Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 422-423.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 190-191.
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “4” in gold (gold painter’s mark).
PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1947.
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 coffeepot, with onglaze enamel painting in the chinoiserie style, belongs to the distinctive period in Meissen’s history that began in 1720 with the arrival from Vienna of Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775). Höroldt brought with him superior skills in enamel painting on porcelain, and his highly significant contribution to Meissen was to develop a palette of very fine bright enamel colors that had so far eluded the team of metallurgists at the manufactory, and that were new to onglaze enamel colors on faience and porcelain in general. Höroldt and his team of painters used these colors to great effect in his singular vision of chinoiserie subjects, many of them based on drawings from what later became known as the Schulz Codex; a facsimile copy of the Schulz Codex can be seen in Rainer Behrend’s Das Meissener Musterbuch für Höroldt-Chinoiserien: Musterblätter aus der Malstube der Meissener Porzellanmanufaktur (Schulz Codex) Leipzig, 1978. Application of the term chinoiserie to this class of Meissen porcelains is problematic, however, because Johann Gregor Höroldt and his painters developed ideas from a variety of sources and Höroldt referred to the “chinoiseries” as “Japanese” (Japonische) figures, an early modern generic term for exotic artifacts and images imported from the East.
The chinoiserie scenes on the coffeepot are framed by scrollwork cartouches in gold, iron-red enamel, and purple luster. On one side of the coffeepot we see a woman carrying a tray of objects and attending to a small child, while on the other side a man seated in a rickshaw speaks to a companion while a servant waits to depart: for comparison with a teapot from the George B. McClellan Jr. collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art see http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/199165. On the cover individual chinoiserie figures attend to food preparation and to a display of vessels on a plinth. Items like this passed through many hands in Meissen’s painting division where artisans applied specialist skills in the enamel painting of figures, flowers and foliage, gold scrollwork, and the polishing of the gold after firing.
Chinoiserie is from the French Chinois (Chinese) and refers to ornamentation that is Chinese-like. The style evolved in Europe as Chinese luxury products began to arrive in the West in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries through the major European trading companies. Artisans were quick to incorporate motifs from these products into their work and to imitate their material qualities, especially the Chinese lacquers, embroidered silks, and porcelains, but their imitation was not informed by first-hand knowledge of China or an understanding of Chinese conventions in two-dimensional representation, and instead a fanciful European vision emerged to become an ornamental style employed in garden and interior design, in cabinet making, faience and porcelain manufacture, and in textiles. Illustrated books began to appear in the second half of the seventeenth century that describe the topography of China, its peoples and their customs, and these sources were copied and used by designers, artists, printmakers, and artisans including Johann Gregor Höroldt at Meissen.
The coffeepot belongs to the same service as the sugar box (ID# 1982.0796.02), and was possibly painted by Johann Gregor Höroldt. Meissen tea and coffee services of this early period were often sent as gifts to members of European royalty favored by the Saxon and Polish courts. They served as tokens of loyalty and affection to relatives in other royal houses with family connections to the Saxon House of Wettin.
For comparison there is a tankard with a similar chinoiserie subject in Hawes, S., Corsiglia, C., 1984, The Rita and Fritz Markus Collection of European Ceramics and Enamels, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, pp. 85-87.
On Johann Gregor Höroldt see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 17-25.
On the subject of royal and diplomatic gifts see Cassidy-Geiger, M., et al, 2008, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts ca.1710-63.
On chinoiserie see Impey, O., 1997, Chinoiserie: the Impact of Oriental Styles on Western Art and Decoration; on the porcelain trade and European exposure to the Chinese product see the exhibition catalog by Emerson, J., Chen, J., Gardner Gates, M., 2000, Porcelain Stories: from China to Europe.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 60-63.
This harmonica was made by F. A. Rauner in Saxony, undetermined date. It is a Polyhymnia Remolo Concert model with 20 double holes and 40 reeds. This harmonica has a red stained wooden comb with stamped and painted decoration with metal cover plates nailed to top and bottom. It is embossed:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “B” in gold (also on inside of cover); (cross with four dots) impressed (former’s mark)
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1952. Ex Coll. Eichinger
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 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 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 coffeepot has a sea-green ground with two quatrefoil reserves on both the cover and the pot framed with a gold line. In one reserve there is a painting of an elegant couple sitting before a rural dwelling that is in disrepair; the woman talks with an elderly peasant while a younger man approaches with a basket full of fruit; the gentleman picks fruit from a tree. In the other reserve handsomely dressed figures are seen in a park before an imposing building. Two extremes of wealth and poverty are depicted here, and for eighteenth-century nobility social rank was an important matter. The nobility were in the minority, greatly outnumbered by the rural poor, the urban laborer, merchant, and professional classes. The subjects on this coffeepot make no comment on the vast social and economic gulf between the nobility and the poor, instead they affirm the old social hierarchy that would not face serious challenges until the nineteenth century in the German territories.
Sources for enamel painted subjects of rural scenes came from numerous prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century. 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) and Jan van de Velde (1593-1641).
Many European artists north of the Alps travelled to Italy and painted subjects featuring the architecture and landscapes they saw there in both urban and rural contexts. Architects and designers of parklands were also strongly influenced by the French style epitomized at Versailles, and hybrid French and Italian styles were imitated across Europe in the early eighteenth century.
Tea, coffee, and chocolate were served in the private apartments of eighteenth-century aristocratic women, usually in the company of other women, but also with male admirers and intimates present. In affluent middle-class households tea and coffee drinking was often the occasion for an informal family gathering. 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 that could reach a less polite form as depicted on the punch bowl after William Hogarth’s A Midnight Modern Conversation (ID number 1983.0565.40).
On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters 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, and on colored grounds see pp. 267-274.
On the introduction of caffeine drinks see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; 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. 296-297.
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None on porcelain; on knife blade “CGI” and “14” stamped in oval.
PURCHASED FROM: S. Berges, New York, 1944.
This knife and fork is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European 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.
Painted with Indian flowers (indianische Blumen) and a lambrequin pattern the handles on the knife and fork follow the Japanese Imari style. The silver knife blade and fork tines are contemporary with the porcelain handles.
Japanese Imari wares came from kilns near the town of Arita in the north-western region of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island, and were exported to Europe by the Dutch through the port of Imari. Decorated in the Aka-e-machi, the enameling center in Arita, Imari wares are generally distinguished from those made in the Kakiemon style by the darker palette of enamel colors and densely patterned surfaces, some of which are clearly derived from Japanese and South-East Asian textiles and known in Japan as brocade ware (nishiki-de), but there are considerable variations within this broad outline. Unlike the Kakiemon style a high proportion of Japanese Imari wares combined underglaze blue painting with overglaze enamel colors.
While the knife has an ancient history as a tool for butchering and cutting food, the table fork is a much later invention. Large two-pronged forks existed in antiquity to assist in the handling of large cuts of meat, but the custom of using a small fork for dining appeared in the cultures of the Middle East and Byzantium in the fifth to seventh century CE. When introduced to Venice in the tenth century by a Byzantine bride at her wedding feast to the Doge’s son, the Venetian court considered the implement a decadent affectation. Nevertheless, forks were adopted slowly in Italy, at first in elite society, and then spread to other parts of Europe reaching England with the traveler Thomas Coryote in the early seventeenth century. Forks arrived with European settlers at a later date in the American colonies, but their use was not wholeheartedly accepted even in the 1800s.
For a detailed account of the Imari style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750.
Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection.
For two examples of full sets of flatware with Meissen handles in the Imari style and with Augsburg metalwork see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 50-51.
For histories of the fork see http://leitesculinaria.com/1157/writings-the-uncommon-origins-of-the-common-fork.html
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 6¾" 17.2 cm
OBJECT NAME: Figure
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: 1983.0565.59
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 232
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: Minerva Antiques, 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 figure of a Russian street trader was the work of Peter Reinicke (1715-1768). Reinicke was born in Danzig and joined the Meissen manufactory in 1743 assembling and finishing figures and figure groups. A year later his abilities led to work as a modeler and assistant to Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) who held Reinicke in high regard. When working in collaboration with Kaendler he would often complete the fine details of a model.
It is not clear what the trader has for sale concealed in the container on his head; possibly cream as he has a small pitcher in his right hand. He wears a knee-length garment tied at the waist common to many of the Russian street crier figures male and female. The figure is part of a series modeled by Reinicke in the late 1740s to1750 based on engravings of Russian street traders.
The subject of street traders in the visual arts has a long history reaching back into the cities of the ancient world. City inhabitants, especially the working poor who lived in cramped accommodations with scarce facilities for cooking, depended heavily on the “fast food” and drink provided by street vendors and bake houses. Street sellers were themselves poor, and the range of goods sold or bartered varied widely, limited only by what could be carried by the individual, wheeled in a barrow, or loaded onto a donkey, mule or ass sometimes pulling a cart. People of a higher social class regarded street traders with contempt on the one hand, but also as colorful curiosities on the other, often in conflict with one another and with city authorities. In 1500, a series of anonymous woodcuts titled the Cries of Paris was an early example of what became a highly popular genre in print form well into the nineteenth century, and especially so in commercially active cities like Paris and London where street sellers formed not only part of the spectacle of display and consumption, but also the raucous sound of the street as they vocalized their merchandise.
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 street traders see Miller, D. C., 1970, Street Criers and Itinerant Tradesmen in European Prints, and Shesgreen, S., 1990, The Criers and Hawkers of London: Engravings and drawings by Marcellus Laroon. 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 the Russian Street Trader series see Yvonne Adams, 2001, Meissen Figures 1730-1775: The Kaendler Years.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 426-427.
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: “N=96/W” engraved (Johanneum mark).
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
This miniature vase 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 little vase has a gourd-like shape painted with stylized flowers in the Japanese Kakiemon style. A miniature vase like this was most likely seen in an elaborate display for a dessert at court banquets, or in a porcelain room as part of a schematic display, and may have been one of a series. The vase has a Johanneum mark and the Dresden inventory of 1779 lists two miniature vases with the numbers 95 and 97, but 96 is missing; the number 96 and a description of small “Aufsatz Bouteillen” (display bottles) delivered from the manufactory in 1725 appears in the fragments of inventories compiled between 1721 and 1727, and published in Ingelore Menzhausen’s Böttgersteinzeug Böttgerporzellan (1969 S. 52-53). The little vase represents an early Meissen pattern painted in enamels and based on Far Eastern prototypes.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on Deshima (or Dejima) in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants through the island of Deshima, and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
On the Kakiemon style see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; see also Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection; Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 170-171.
MEASUREMENTS: Bowl: H. 1¾" 4.5cm; Saucer: D. 5¼" 13.3cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: ca. 1735-1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.08ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 423ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “4” in gold on cup; and“7” in gold on saucer (gold painter’s numbers); former’s mark impressed on bottom of cup.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
This tea bowl 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.
Framed by leaf and strapwork (Laub-und Bandelwerk) in iron-red and purple enamel, purple luster, and gold, and painted in onglaze polychrome enamels the tea bowl has a river scene dominated by a windmill on one side and the entrance to a harbor on the other. On the saucer a harbor scene shows figures waiting or watching for small sailing ships seen in the distance. Vignettes of harbor scenes are painted in purple enamel contained within the gold scrollwork borders on the interior rims of both the tea bowl and saucer.
Sources for enamel painted harbor and waterside scenes came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch 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 popular were the subjects by painters Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640).
The popularity of landscape, harbor, and waterside subjects held particular appeal for city dwellers and for the nobility obliged to fulfill court duties. Long before Meissen began production Dutch artists realized the potential for a market in prints that led viewers into pleasant places real and imagined. In seventeenth-century Amsterdam there was a flourishing publishing industry to support the production of illustrated books and print series for buyers to view at their leisure. 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 the decoration of many branches of artisan made and manufactured goods.
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 graphic sources for Meissen’s painters 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.
On Dutch prints see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
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. 298-299.
MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1740
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.23 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 832 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “F” in underglaze blue and “6” impressed on cup; “K” in underglaze blue and “O” impressed on saucer, possibly the former Johann Casper Hasse.
PURCHASED FROM: E. Pinkus, New York, 1946.
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 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 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.
Painted on this cup and saucer in underglaze blue and onglaze purple and gold is the so-called little table pattern (Tischchenmuster) a Meissen adaptation of Far Eastern styles. There are many examples of this pattern and on this cup and saucer a wider range of colors; red, yellow and green enrich the mixed floral arrangement that extends to the rim of the saucer and around the cup. Typically the pattern has an abundance of flowers and foliage rising from behind a small table and garden fence, but on Japanese wares made for export the design is organized with a greater degree of symmetry more appealing to European taste, and which the Meissen designers further exploited here.
Imari wares came from kilns in the north-western region of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island, near the town of Arita and were exported through the port of Imari. Decorated in the Aka-e-machi, the enameling center in Arita, Imari wares are generally distinguished from those made in the Kakiemon style by the darker palette of enamel colors and densely patterned surfaces, some of which are clearly derived from Japanese and South-East Asian textiles and known in Japan as brocade ware (nishiki-de), but there are considerable variations within this broad outline. Unlike the Kakiemon style a high proportion of Japanese Imari wares combined underglaze blue painting with overglaze enamel colors.
The little table pattern was not in use on services for the Saxon and Polish royal households and it was particularly successful in the later eighteenth century, very likely appealing to consumers from the increasingly affluent entrepreneurial class in the German States, especially in cities like Leipzig and Berlin.
The “little table pattern” is associated with the Imari style of decoration produced in Arita
On the little table pattern see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, pp.95-103.
For several examples of this pattern in polychrome see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 312-319.
On Johann Casper Hasse see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p.110.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 166-167.
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1¾" 4.5cm; Saucer: W. 4½" 11.4cm x 4" 10.2cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730-1735
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.12 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 247 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “//” incised.
PURCHASED FROM: Minerva Antiques, New York, 1943.
This tea bowl 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 tea bowl and saucer in quatrefoil shape have an onglaze enamel painted pattern adapted from Japanese motifs in the Kakiemon style by Meissen artists. The design has scattered stylized flowers and two bundles of rice on both the tea bowl and the saucer. The rims have a single line painted in an iron-oxide glaze as seen on many original Japanese Kakiemon type vessels and on earlier Chinese blue and white vessels of the late Ming period (1368-1644).
The onglaze enamel design was first produced at Meissen for the Parisian dealer Rodolphe Lemaire, who sold Meissen porcelain fraudulently for higher prices, passing them off as original Japanese pieces for which there was a great demand. After confiscation of all remaining Meissen products held on the property of his Saxon accomplice Count Hoym, the pattern was later used for the dinner service commissioned for Count Alexander Joseph Sulkowski.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
For a detailed account of the Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750 and Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection, p. 127. See also Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
On the Sulkowski dinner service see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 278-280. See also Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 185-187; Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 278, for a dish with the same Kakiemon pattern.
For a Vincennes copy of a Meissen bowl that carries this pattern see den Blaauwen, A. L., 2000, Meissen Porcelain in the Rijksmuseum, p. 249.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 152-153.
MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1¾" 4.5cm; Saucer: D. 4⅞" 12.4cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1730
SUBJECT: Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.32 ab
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 317 ab
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Max Gluckselig, New York, 1943.
This tea bowl 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.
As there are no marks on these items they are probably Böttger porcelain decorated at a later date. The glaze has a creamy tone that also suggests an earlier stage of production. Painted in onglaze enamels and gold in the Kakiemon style the design features flowering chrysanthemums among other plants with insects flying above; a geometric band encircles the interior rims of both the tea bowl and saucer.
Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon. In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
For a detailed account of the Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750, and Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection
See also Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 188-189.
TITLE: Meissen tea caddy and cover (Hausmalerinnen)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 4" 10.2 cm
OBJECT NAME: Tea caddy and cover
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1717-1720
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.38 a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 668 a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1947.
This tea caddy 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 tea caddy 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 even imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The tea caddy was painted in Augsburg in the 1730s, probably by Anna Elizabeth Wald (b.1696) and Sabina Hosennestel (b.1706), the daughters of gold worker and Hausmaler Johann Aufenwerth (d. 1728). Two hundred years earlier Augsburg was the center of international merchant banking, and it is no coincidence that it was also a center for goldsmith work of exceptional quality. Although no longer a powerful city in the eighteenth century, Augsburg was still renowned for its high quality artisan trades in precious metals, book production, and textiles. Hausmalerei was one among many subsidiary trades that met demands from other workshops, individual clients, and new manufactories like that of Meissen.
The tea caddy has a hexagonal baluster form and the arrowhead border on top of the cover is a device often seen in Augsburg Hausmalerei. The elaborate scrolled section below the chinoiseries of gentlemen smoking and taking tea, is characteristic of another Augsburg Hausmaler, Abraham Seuter (1689-1747), and may indicate cross influences between the two workshops. It is also possible that the source was a pattern book published by Jeremias Wolff of Augsburg with designs illustrated on early porcelain models from the Meissen manufactory and the DuPaquier manufactory in Vienna (see Cassidy-Geiger, M., “Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain: Origins of the Print Collection in the Meissen Archives” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol 31(1996) pp.99-126).
On the Augsburg Hausmaler and Hausmalerinnen see Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 508-509.