Natural Resources

Meissen figure of a miner

Description: MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.; This figure of a miner 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 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 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.; Saxony’s miners held a high status in comparison to other laboring communities, mining silver, lead, copper, cobalt, and bismuth out of the rich Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in the south-west region of the Saxon State. The figure seen here represents a miner in his parade livery with an axe carried over his right shoulder. On his hat the emblem of crossed mining picks is painted in gold, and crossed swords - just like the mark on Meissen porcelains - are painted on his belt buckle. Miners worked hard rock to get at the ores, with water and toxic fumes their constant enemies. Smelters and furnace workers who processed the ores also belonged to the mining industry (bergbauindustrie), as did the surveyors responsible for mapping the complex underground seams of ore, and the engineers who built and worked the machinery that kept the mineshafts open.; The Meissen modelers Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) and Peter Reinicke (d. 1768) produced the original figure for this and other mining subjects. Kaendler, who joined Meissen in 1731 after working for the Dresden court sculptor Benjamin Thomae (1682-1751), developed a baroque style and a scale for porcelain figures that successfully exploited the nature of the material. The mining figures were based on prints from a publication by Christoph Weigel of Nuremberg, Die Abbildung und Beschreibung derer sämtlichen Berg-Wercks und Hütten Beamten und Bedienten nach ihrem gewöhnlichen Rang und Ordnung im behörigen Hütten-Habit [The representation and description of all the mining and metallurgy officials and their subordinates in appropriate livery according to their customary rank and order]. Mining personnel wore these garments at the elaborate parades that formed part of the court festivals held to celebrate anniversaries, betrothals, and weddings in the European court calendar. One of the most spectacular was the Saturn Festival held in 1719 to celebrate the marriage of Augustus II Elector of Saxony's son, the electoral prince Friedrich Augustus, to Princess Maria Josepha of Austria, the daughter of the Emperor Joseph I. (See Watanabe O'Kelly, H., Court Culture in Dresden: From Renaissance to Baroque, 2002).; It was the custom in court entertainments to decorate banqueting tables with figures made from sugar, and the design of these elaborate ornaments was the task of the court sculptors. When Kaendler took up his post as a modeler at Meissen he was quick to see that porcelain could add to or replace sugar in this function. This figurine was one among many in a series that depicted the work of miners, and collectively formed a table decoration on this theme.; The Meissen Manufactory uses the same techniques today to make individual figures and figure groups as it did in the eighteenth century. The original figure, sculpted in wax or modeler’s clay, is cut into smaller pieces from which plaster of Paris molds are taken. This miner is a relatively simple subject, but complex figure groups often require up to seventy separate molds. It is the job of the Meissen manufactory’s team of figure specialists to reassemble the figures from porcelain pressed into, and then released from the molds when still damp. The pieces are then stuck carefully in place and the complete figure group is dried slowly and evenly before firing. (See Pietsch, U. Triumph of the Blue Swords, 2010, pp. 61-67; pp.121-131).; Syz, H., Rückert, R., Miller, J. J. II., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 440-441.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.65.387
catalog number: 65.387
collector/donor number: 422
accession number: 262623

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a woman in Turkish dress from a plat de ménage

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a woman in Turkish dress from a plat de ménage; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 6½" 16.5 cm.; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1745-1750; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 65.383; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 44; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; 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.; Modeled by Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749), the woman in oriental dress sits beside a covered bowl molded with a basket weave pattern designed to serve sugar or salt in a plat de ménage. A similar model exists of a man with the same bowl. The Plats de Ménage served as elaborate table-center pieces with containers designed to hold flavorings for food: mustard, spices, salt, sugar, oil, vinegar, and often, rising above the cruet set on a sculpted column, a bowl or basket for lemons, an expensive and prestigious luxury on the eighteenth-century dining table. The Plats de Ménage were based on silver prototypes and designed to “save” (French épargner) space at the table set with dishes for the French style of service popular in the eighteenth century.; The Ottoman Empire, known as the “Turkish” empire, was once part of Europe with a long held presence in the southeast of the continent, but while it was an entity feared by many, Ottoman Turkey was also a source of fascination that for 200 years before the eighteenth century influenced European literature, theater, and the visual arts. By the 1700s European towns and cities had “Turkish”-style coffee houses, people ate “Turkish” sweets, smoked “Turkish” pipes, and wore “Turkish”-style garments. The figure here is of a European woman in Turkish-style dress, a form of luxurious clothing adopted by the social elites.; A publication about the wider Middle East that made a great impression on the European imagination was the Recueil de cent Estampes representant differentes nations du Levant (Collection of One hundred Prints of the Various Nations of the Levant) with engravings by Louis Gérard Scotin (1690-1751) after the drawings by Jacques Le Hay after the paintings by Jean Baptiste van Mour (1671-1737). In 1699, the French ambassador appointed to Istanbul was the Marquis Charles de Ferriol. Early in the eighteenth century he commissioned the young Flemish painter Jean Baptiste van Mour to record Ottoman court life and the social customs, social classes, and occupations of Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire. The published collection of prints fired the imagination of those who saw the volume in 1714-15. The Meissen modeler Peter Eberlein based figures of a Persian, of a Sultana, and a Bulgarian woman on Scotin’s engravings after Le Hay.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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 with gold highlights on the basket. “Indian flowers” (indianische Blumen) decorate the long tunic under her mantel.; On the Plat de Ménage see Katharina Hantschmann, “The plat de ménage: The Centerpiece on the Banqueting Table” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 107-119.; On Jean-Baptiste Vanmour see Nefedova-Gruntova, O, 2009, A Journey into the World of the Ottomans:The Art of Jean-Baptiste Vanmour. See also Williams, H., 2014, Turquerie: An Eighteenth-Century European Fantasy.; 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.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 456-457.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.65.383ab
catalog number: 65.383ab
accession number: 262623
collector/donor number: 44

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a drinker

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a drinker; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 4¾" 12.1 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1745-1750; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 75.190; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 432; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords on an unglazed base.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.; 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.; A figure of a man drinking, variously described as Dutch or Polish, was modeled by Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1685-1749) in the mid-to-late 1740s. Figures of this type were not seen in isolation, but formed part of a group representing the world of the rural peasant or city people of foreign lands displayed alongside sugar sculptures on the dessert table for the entertainment of guests. Small models of dwellings completed the illusion of place created in miniature form. The Saxon court held events in which its members impersonated people living on the land, creating for themselves a fantasy about those living on the opposite spectrum of the social hierarchy.; Figures of drinkers, or topers, were common to the repertoire of small-scale sculpture in many eighteenth-century porcelain manufactories, and in the fine earthenware and faience manufactories.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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 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.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 424-425.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1745-1750; 1745-1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.75.190
catalog number: 75.190
collector/donor number: 432
accession number: 319073

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure from the Monkey Band

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a monkey flautist; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 5¾" 14.6 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1765-1766; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 65.386; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 379; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “14” impressed (series number).; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, 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 Monkey Band, begun by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in about 1747 and completed by him with Peter Reinicke ((1715-1768) by 1766, was a very popular series. The nineteen figures were based on drawings by Christophe Huet (1692-1765) in the manner of his singeries, the painted interiors featuring anthropomorphic monkey figures in the Chateau of Chantilly north of Paris and in the Hôtel de Rohan in Paris itself.; A music stand in the Monkey Band identifies the figure group with the opera seria Lucio Pipirio Dittatore by Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783) premiered in Dresden in 1742. German by birth, Hasse was a prolific and highly successful composer in the Italian style, and with his equally successful wife, the singer Faustina Bordoni (1700-1781), he worked for several European courts, but composed and directed music for the Dresden court for most of his active career.; Like the chinoiseries, the singeries represented an exotic fantasy, but one that expressed a form of mockery of human behavior. Monkeys were exotic pets, and captive chimpanzees were a source of great interest because of their obvious kinship to humans that both fascinated and repelled Europeans. Where did a chimpanzee or a monkey stand in relation to the human species? Eighteenth-century naturalists asked questions that sought to throw light on the nature of being human, and they looked for answers and understanding in the behavior of other animals.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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. The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; Go to the Rhode Island School of Design Museum for more information on the Monkey Band with a recording of the fragment of notes visible on the music stand: http://risdmuseum.org/notes/151_live_from_risd_its_the_meissen_monkey_band; 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.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 458-459.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.65.386
catalog number: 65.386
accession number: 262623
collector/donor number: 379

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a stag

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a stag; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 7⅝" 19.4 cm; OBJECT NAME: Animal 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: 76.373; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 344; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Arthur S. Vernay Inc., New York, 1943.; This animal 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; One of master modeler Johann Joachim Kaendler’s (1706-1775) great strengths was his skill for modeling animals. He made life studies of animals and birds in the menagerie and aviary of the Dresden court, but one abiding eighteenth-century passion was the hunt, and deer hunting especially so. The stag represented here, and probably modeled by Kaendler, is a ‘royal’ stag marked by the twelve points or tines on the antlers. The stag is possibly modeled on a print by Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767), one of four images titled Deer in the Wild. Ridinger was a painter, draughtsman, etcher and engraver, and a publisher of prints specializing in animal subjects. It is also known that Kaendler drew animals from life, probably using for his sources the Elector of Saxony’s stock of wild game corralled for hunting.; Deer were high status game in the extravagant hunts conducted by the royal and princely courts in eighteenth-century Europe. A hunt was obligatory during the many court festivities held to mark betrothals, marriages, peace treaties, and feast days, but hunting inflicted a heavy toll on the environment. Game like red deer and wild boar were kept in hunting preserves that enclosed large tracts of woodland, and their presence in large numbers degraded the new growth of the forest. It was common practice to shoot game driven in herds across the line of fire, and in order to maintain sufficient numbers of animals many were caught in the wild and transported to the hunting preserves. Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers criticized the royal and princely hunting administrations for the damage caused to the environment, especially the shortage of wood caused by degradation of the forests.; These small figures of animals were used for decorating the dessert table for festive banquets associated with the hunt. They formed part of the design in conjunction with decorations sculpted in sugar and other materials to create an elaborate display for the final course of the meal. The practice of sculpting in sugar, marzipan, butter, and ice for the festive table goes back for many centuries, and porcelain figures were a late addition to the tradition.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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 animal is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; 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 hunt see Kroll, M., 2004, ‘Hunting in the Eighteenth Century: An Environmental Perspective’ in Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.9-36; On decorating the dessert table see Cassidy-Geiger, M. "The Hof-Conditorey in Dresden: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain", in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 121-131.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 480-481.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1755; 1755

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.76.373
catalog number: 76.373
accession number: 1977.0166
collector/donor number: 344

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a deer: one of a pair

Description: TITLE: Meissen: A pair of does; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 4½" 11.5 cm; OBJECT NAME: Animal figures; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1758; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 76.375 A,B; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 359,360; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; These animal figures 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 , 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; Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeled the two does in about 1758 from an original group that comprised a doe and two dogs. The figures may be based on one of series of prints by Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767) titled Deer in the Wild. Ridinger was a painter, draughtsman, etcher and engraver, and a publisher of prints specializing in animal subjects. On the other hand, the figures may have originated from Kaendler’s own observations of live animals. In his work books held in the Meissen Manufactory archives, Kaendler frequently refers to models that he changed or amended over the years; from a clay model taken from the existing molds it was possible to refashion a figure or figure group.; Deer were high status game in the extravagant hunts conducted by the royal and princely courts in eighteenth-century Europe. A hunt was obligatory during the many court festivities held to mark betrothals, marriages, peace treaties, and feast days, but hunting inflicted a heavy toll on the environment. Game like red deer and wild boar were kept in hunting preserves that enclosed large tracts of woodland, and their presence in large numbers degraded the new growth of the forest. It was common practice to shoot game driven in herds across the line of fire, and in order to maintain sufficient numbers animals were caught in the wild and transported to the hunting preserves. Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers criticized the royal and princely hunting administrations for the damage caused to the environment, especially the shortage of wood caused by degradation of the forests.; These small figures of animals were used for decorating the dessert table for festive banquets associated with the hunt, and these figures were probably part of a herd of deer. They formed part of the design in conjunction with decorations sculpted in sugar and other materials to create an elaborate display for the final course of the meal. The practice of sculpting in sugar, marzipan, butter, and ice for the festive table goes back for many centuries, and porcelain figures were a late addition to the tradition.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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 animals are painted in overglaze enamel colors.; 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 hunt see Kroll, M., 2004, ‘Hunting in the Eighteenth Century: An Environmental Perspective’ in Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.9-36.; On the dessert table see Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, 'The Hof Conditorey in Dresden: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain', in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 121-131.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 482-483.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1755; 1755

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.76.375B
catalog number: 76.375B
accession number: 1977.0166
collector/donor number: 360

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure group of Dutch peasants dancing

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure group of Dutch peasants dancing; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 5½" 14 cm; OBJECT NAME: Figure group; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1746-1750; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 76.370; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 526; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Paul Lane, 1944.; This figure group 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.; Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749) modeled the figures of Dutch Peasants (Holländische Bauern)based on a work with the title Gustus (Latin for taste or appetite) by the artist Gottfried Bernhard Göz (1708-1774) who specialized in genre subjects and large scale allegorical and religious works.; With Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) Eberlein made a series of figures of peasants engaged in various activities like taking a goat to market, cutting wood (see ID number 75.189), playing the hurdy-gurdy, harvesting produce, taking snuff, drinking, and individual figures dancing. Another model of dancing peasants, but more finely dressed, was made by Eberlein in about 1740. Used by the court confectioners for table decorations these figures augmented the structures made out of sugar and other materials for the elaborate displays designed to serve the dessert on festive occasions. The Dresden court dressed themselves as rural peasants at these events with the pretense of entering a way of life the social elites observed but did not experience.; Meissen figures and figure groups were usually modeled in clay, and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds were made. Porcelain clay was then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original state, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece was then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work was arduous and required the making of many molds from the original model.; The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; On Bernhard Goz see Möller, K.A., “ ’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’Meissen Pieces based on Graphic Originals”, and 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” both authors in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, p.88 and pp.61-67.; On the dessert table see Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, 'The Hof Conditorey in Dresden: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain', in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 121-131. See also Ivan Day, 'Sculpture for the Eighteenth Century Garden Dessert', in; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 436-437.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1740-1750; 1740-1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.76.370
catalog number: 76.370
collector/donor number: 526
accession number: 1977.0166

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure group: a pair of young lovers

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure group of a pair of young lovers; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: H.6½ in. 16.5cm.; OBJECT NAME: Figure group; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1774 -1780; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: CE*65.385; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 107; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue inside a triangle (impressed).; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.; The figure group of a pair of young lovers 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 young couple appear to be in animated conversation as they walk together informally, and this is characteristic of late eighteenth-century figure groups that represent a transition from the porcelain sculptures tailored to the interests of the Dresden court before the Seven Year’s War of 1756-1763; a conflict that ruined the Saxon economy and limited the excesses of the Saxon ruling elite. Although French influence is evident in the piece, educated and affluent Germans were inclined to reject the court fashions associated with the ancien régime in favor of subjects that expressed more “natural” behavior. The professional and entrepreneurial middle class in German-speaking Europe enjoyed the products of expansion in the publishing world that brought new ideas, material products, and imaginative literature into their consciousness, and it was literature in particular that generated the cultivation of sensibility (Empfindsamkeit) through popular novels, journals, and conduct books. A “cult” that went too far in encouraging emotional extremes, according to contemporaries like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who in his youth had written the novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” that expressed this extreme to great effect among the reading public. Sensibility was, nevertheless, a phenomenon that made a considerable impact on European culture.; The figures are possibly the work of Johann Joachim Kaendler, who died in 1775. Appointed to the Meissen modeling team after the Seven Years War, the French sculptor in porcelain Michel Victor Acier (1736-1799) introduced a style influenced by the work of French painter Jean-Baptiste Greuze; an artist criticized for overreaching sentimentality in his subjects.; 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 sensibility with reference to Britain see Barker Benfield, G.J., “Sensibility” in Iain McCalman, (general editor) 1999, An Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age, pp. 102-114; Cantorino, B. B., (ed.) 2005, German Literature of the Eighteenth Century: The Enlightenment and Sensibility.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 462-463.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: ca 1750
date made: 1774-1780

maker: Royal Porcelain Factory

ID Number: CE.65.385
catalog number: 65.385
collector/donor number: 107
accession number: 262623

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen plate

Description: TITLE: Meissen: Pair of Plates; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 9⅞" 25.1cm; OBJECT NAME: Plates; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 63.244. AB; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 378 AB; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Arthur S. Vernay, New York, 1943.; These plates 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 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.; Sprays of natural flowers take up the center of these plates. The reserves on the flanges frame paintings in onglaze enamel of songbirds perched on branches that were likely based on hand-colored plates from Eleazar Albin’s (1713-1759) two volume work A Natural History of Birds, first published in London in 1731, with a second edition in 1738. The Meissen manufactory had a copy of the work, one of the earliest illustrated books on birds that Albin completed with his daughter Elizabeth. Keeping caged songbirds was popular with many people across a broad spectrum of the eighteenth-century middle class and nobility, and their decorative potential was exploited especially in wall coverings, textiles, and ceramics.; The specialist bird painters (Vogelmaler) at Meissen were low in number compared to the flower painters, but the term “color painter” (Buntmaler) was a fluid term indicating that painters moved from one category to another as demand required, especially for flower, fruit and bird subjects.; The low relief pattern on the flanges of the plates is the so-called “New Dulong” (Neu Dulong) pattern named for the Amsterdam merchant who was a dealer for Meissen. Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) recorded modeling a trial plate for a table service for Monsieur Dulong in June 1743. The process of creating shallow relief patterns was laborious and required considerable skill, and the “New Dulong” pattern was one of the first to break away from the formality of the basket weave designs to introduce a flowing pattern in the rococo style.; These plates belong to the same or similar pattern as the tureen, cover, and stand (ID number 1992.0427.20 abc.); 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.; On relief decoration see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober , p. 103, 104, 77-No. 60.; 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, pp. 412-413.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.63.244B
catalog number: 63.244B
accession number: 250446
collector/donor number: 378k

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a doe

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a doe; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 2⅝" 6.7 cm.; OBJECT NAME: Animal figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1740-60; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 76.374; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 361; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: None; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; This animal 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 doe seated without a base is possibly modeled on a print by Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767), one of four images titled Deer in the Wild. Ridinger was a painter, draughtsman, etcher and engraver, and a publisher of prints specializing in animal subjects. On the other hand, the figure may have originated from Kaendler’s own observations of live animals in the Elector of Saxony’s game reserve. Small animal figures of this kind were assembled for a dessert table celebrating the hunt at a court banquet.; Deer were high status game in the extravagant hunts conducted by the royal and princely courts in eighteenth-century Europe. A hunt was obligatory during the many court festivities held to mark betrothals, marriages, peace treaties, and feast days, but hunting inflicted a heavy toll on the environment. Game like red deer and wild boar were kept in hunting preserves that enclosed large tracts of woodland, and their presence in large numbers degraded the new growth of the forest. It was common practice to shoot game driven in herds across the line of fire, and in order to maintain sufficient numbers animals were caught in the wild and transported to the hunting preserves.; Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers criticized the royal and princely hunting administrations for the damage caused to the environment, especially the shortage of wood caused by degradation of the forests.; These small figures of animals were used for decorating the dessert table for festive banquets associated with the hunt. They formed part of the design in conjunction with decorations sculpted in sugar and other materials to create an elaborate display for the final course of the meal. The practice of sculpting in sugar, marzipan, butter, and ice for the festive table goes back for many centuries, and porcelain figures were a late addition to the tradition.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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 animal is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; 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., and Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 61-67.; On the hunt see Kroll, M., 2004, ‘Hunting in the Eighteenth Century: An Environmental Perspective’ in Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.9-36.; On the dessert table see Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, 'The Hof Conditorey in Dresden: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain', in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 121-131.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 480-481.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.76.374
catalog number: 76.374
accession number: 1977.0166
collector/donor number: 361

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a deer: one of a pair

Description: TITLE: Meissen: A pair of does; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 4½" 11.5 cm; OBJECT NAME: Animal figures; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1758; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 76.375 A,B; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 359,360; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; These animal figures 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 , 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; Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeled the two does in about 1758 from an original group that comprised a doe and two dogs. The figures may be based on one of series of prints by Johann Elias Ridinger (1698-1767) titled Deer in the Wild. Ridinger was a painter, draughtsman, etcher and engraver, and a publisher of prints specializing in animal subjects. On the other hand, the figures may have originated from Kaendler’s own observations of live animals. In his work books held in the Meissen Manufactory archives, Kaendler frequently refers to models that he changed or amended over the years; from a clay model taken from the existing molds it was possible to refashion a figure or figure group.; Deer were high status game in the extravagant hunts conducted by the royal and princely courts in eighteenth-century Europe. A hunt was obligatory during the many court festivities held to mark betrothals, marriages, peace treaties, and feast days, but hunting inflicted a heavy toll on the environment. Game like red deer and wild boar were kept in hunting preserves that enclosed large tracts of woodland, and their presence in large numbers degraded the new growth of the forest. It was common practice to shoot game driven in herds across the line of fire, and in order to maintain sufficient numbers animals were caught in the wild and transported to the hunting preserves. Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers criticized the royal and princely hunting administrations for the damage caused to the environment, especially the shortage of wood caused by degradation of the forests.; These small figures of animals were used for decorating the dessert table for festive banquets associated with the hunt. They formed part of the design in conjunction with decorations sculpted in sugar and other materials to create an elaborate display for the final course of the meal. The practice of sculpting in sugar, marzipan, butter, and ice for the festive table goes back for many centuries, and porcelain figures were a late addition to the tradition.; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut 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 animals are painted in overglaze enamel colors.; 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 hunt see Kroll, M., 2004, ‘Hunting in the Eighteenth Century: An Environmental Perspective’ in Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung Vol. 9, No. 3, pp.9-36.; On the dessert table see Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, 'The Hof Conditorey in Dresden: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain', in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 121-131.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 482-483.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1755; 1755

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.76.375A
catalog number: 76.375A
accession number: 1977.0166
collector/donor number: 359

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen plate

Description: TITLE: Meissen plate with pierced flange; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 9" 22. 9cm; OBJECT NAME: Plate; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1745-1750; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 63.248; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 214; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.; 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 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 plate, with a pierced flange, has overglaze enamel painted floral sprays of German flowers in the center. 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 earlier German flowers (deutsche Blumen) the Meissen painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s publication, the Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745), in which many of the plates were engraved after drawings by the outstanding botanical illustrator Georg Dionys Ehret (1708-1770). The more formally correct German flowers were superseded by mannered flowers (manier Blumen), depicted in a looser and somewhat overblown style based on the work of still-life flower painters and interior designers like Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) and Louis Tessier (1719?-1781), later referred to as “naturalistic” flowers. For this style see the similar plate of a later date ID# 63.249.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit 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. Details in gold were applied by specialists in gold painting and polishing at Meissen. 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, where hand painting is still practiced, most floral patterns are now applied by transfers and are not painted directly onto the porcelain.; Following the appointment to the manufactory in 1733 of court sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775), modeling techniques became more sophisticated. The process of creating shallow relief patterns like this basket weave trellis was laborious and required considerable skill and openwork of this kind is challenging to produce in ceramic manufactures as distortion can occur more easily at any stage. The sources for designs in relief came from pattern books and engravings, especially those by the French designer Jean Bérain the Elder (1638-1711), and the Nuremberg designer Paul Decker (1677-1713) among many others. Later rococo designs in the French style were disseminated through the German states principally by François Cuvilliés the Elder (1695-1768). These designs were applied in architecture, interior stucco work and wood carving, furniture, wall coverings, and ceramics.; 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.; On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.; On relief patterns and three dimensional modeling at Meissen see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 380-381.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: c.1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.63.248
catalog number: 63.248
accession number: 250446
collector/donor number: 214a

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a rhinoceros

Description: MARKS: Crossed swords on unglazed foot.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.; This rhinoceros is part of 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 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 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.; Few people had seen a rhinoceros in early eighteenth-century Europe, and this figure bears a close resemblance to Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut of an animal that was brought to Portugal in the sixteenth century. Dürer did not see the animal himself, but devised an image from descriptions, and possibly from sketches that reached Nuremberg in 1515. This rhinoceros, however, is more likely based on prints published to advertise "Clara", an Indian rhinoceros brought to Europe on a Dutch East India Company vessel, the Knappenhof, by Captain Douwemout van der Meer, who acquired Clara in Calcutta in 1741. Seeing the potential this extraordinary animal had for making money, Captain Douwemout exhibited Clara in many European cities, including Dresden in 1747. An engraving of the "Dutch" rhinoceros by Moritz Bodenehr (1665-1749), dated 1747, could have been the model for the Meissen figure seen here.; Johann Joachim Kaendler may have modeled this little figure, but in the 1730s he worked on an ambitious project for the Japanese Palace producing porcelain sculptures of native and exotic species held in the Elector of Saxony's menagerie in Dresden. Some of these works still extant are life size, and others are over four feet high; a rhinoceros sculpted to the size of a large dog, after Dürer’s version, still exists, probaly modeled by Gottlieb Kirchner.; Elector Augustus II commissioned over 500 animals and birds for the Japanese Palace, but it became clear that porcelain was not a suitable material for large-scale sculpture. When fired, even after adjustments to increase the strength of the material, the porcelain cracked open or slumped out of shape, and it was not possible to apply enamel color and risk another firing. Understanding the limits of the material, Kaendler turned to the development of small-scale porcelain figures of animals, birds, and human subjects, many of which are noteworthy for their fresh and lively expression across baroque and rococo styles.; Figurative sculpture in clays of many different kinds, have an ancient global history, and they can be highly informative items in our attempts to interpret cultures of the past. The invention of hard-paste porcelain at Meissen, and the work of the court sculptors employed in the manufactory, gave rise to a genre of figurative subjects that help us to interpret the court culture of European society much closer to us in time. The Meissen figures, imitated by other European porcelain manufacturers, influenced the style and repertoire of ceramic figurines, many of which are still in production today bearing a close or distant relationship to the originals.; On Clara's story see Rookmaaker, R. et al., Woodcuts and Engravings illustrating the journey of Clara, the most popular Rhinoceros of the eighteenth century, in Der Zoologische Garten: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Tiergärtnerei, 70. Band, Oktober 2000, Heft 5. http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/117/1175857260.pdf; See T.H. Clarke, "The Rhinoceros in European Ceramics", in Kermik freunde der Schweiz, Mitteilungsblatt Nr. 89, November 1976, also available online at: http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/pdf_files/138/1381966744.pdf?bcsi_scan_2687365ababd2c82=0&bcsi_scan_filename=1381966744.pdf; On Meissen animal sculpture see Wittwer, S., 2001, A Royal Menagerie: Meissen Porcelain Animals. For a wider historical and sociological survey that draws on animal imagery see Kalof, L., 2007, Looking at Animals in Human History.; Syz, H., Rückert, R., Miller, J. J. II., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 482-483.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.69.82
collector/donor number: 514
accession number: 287702
catalog number: 69.82

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen plate (one of a pair)

Description: TITLE: Meissen: Pair of Plates; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 9⅞" 25.1cm; OBJECT NAME: Plates; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 63.244. AB; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 378 AB; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Arthur S. Vernay, New York, 1943.; These plates 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 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.; Sprays of natural flowers take up the center of these plates. The reserves on the flanges frame paintings in onglaze enamel of songbirds perched on branches that were likely based on hand-colored plates from Eleazar Albin’s (1713-1759)two volume work A Natural History of Birds, first published in London in 1731, with a second edition in 1738. The Meissen manufactory had a copy of the work, one of the earliest illustrated books on birds that Albin completed with his daughter Elizabeth. Keeping caged songbirds was popular with many people across a broad spectrum of the eighteenth-century middle class and the nobility, and their decorative potential was exploited especially in wall coverings, textiles, and ceramics.; The specialist bird painters (Vogelmaler) at Meissen were low in number compared to the flower painters, but the term “color painter” (Buntmaler) was a fluid term indicating that painters moved from one category to another as demand required, especially for flower, fruit and bird subjects.; The low relief pattern on the flanges of the plates is the so-called “New Dulong” (Neu Dulong) pattern named for the Amsterdam merchant who was a dealer for Meissen. Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) recorded modeling a trial plate for a table service for Monsieur Dulong in June 1743. The process of creating shallow relief patterns was laborious and required considerable skill, and the “New Dulong” pattern was the first to break away from the formality of the basket weave designs to introduce a flowing pattern in the rococo style.; These plates belong to the same or similar pattern as the tureen, cover, and stand (ID number 1992.0427.20 abc.); 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.; On relief decoration see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober , p. 103, 104, 77-No. 60.; 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. 412-413.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.63.244A
catalog number: 63.244A
accession number: 250446
collector/donor number: 378h

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure: a pair of nesting birds

Description: TITLE: Meissen: A pair of nesting birds; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3 ⅛" 8 cm.; OBJECT NAME: Bird figures; 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: 78.432 A,B; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 398, 405, A,B; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: None; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; These canaries caring for their hatchlings 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 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.; Johann Joachim Kaendler (1776-1775) began to model birds in 1733 soon after his appointment to the Meissen manufactory. He studied exotic birds kept in the Saxon Elector’s aviaries at Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, but his models of native European birds were also observed with care, and he invested all his avian subjects with characteristics typical of their species. Canaries are not native to Europe, but by the eighteenth century German breeders were known for their skill in raising birds with particularly fine singing abilities. This particular model is one of Kaendler’s earliest, recorded in the manufactory archives in January 1733 as ‘a canary bird nest, in which are found three young by an unbroken egg, and the adult canary bird perches on the nest feeding the young.’ The two items seen here are almost identical in form. Other models have two birds on a nest, and typical species represented are canaries and finches, both of which were popular for their songs and kept as pets in ornamental cages. Kaendler modeled at least three bird sellers, one based on Christophe Huet’s Cris de Paris series in collaboration with Peter Reinicke, another of unspecified graphic origin, and yet another based on the Cryes of the City of London series after the engraving ‘ Buy a fine singing bird’ in Pierce Tempest’s publication of 1688. The original drawings were by Marcellus Laroon. See the ‘Quack Doctor with monkey’ (74.140) from the same series.; 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 nest is made of fine extrusions passed through metal dyes or mesh.; The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; 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.; See Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775,2002, p.18. 3. 1 Canari Vogel Nest, worinnen sich 3 junge nebst einem unausgebrütetem Ey befinden, und the alte Canari Vogel auf dem Nest sitzet und die jungen füttert.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 484-485.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.78.432B
catalog number: 78.432B
collector/donor number: 405
accession number: 1978.2185

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure: a pair of nesting birds

Description: TITLE: Meissen: A pair of nesting birds; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 3 ⅛" 8 cm.; OBJECT NAME: Bird figures; 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: 78.432 A,B; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 398, 405, A,B; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: None; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.; These canaries caring for their hatchlings 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 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.; Johann Joachim Kaendler (1776-1775) began to model birds in 1733 soon after his appointment to the Meissen manufactory. He studied exotic birds kept in the Saxon Elector’s aviaries at Moritzburg Castle near Dresden, but his models of native European birds were also observed with care, and he invested all his avian subjects with characteristics typical of their species. Canaries are not native to Europe, but by the eighteenth century German breeders were known for their skill in raising birds with particularly fine singing abilities. This particular model is one of Kaendler’s earliest, recorded in the manufactory archives in January 1733 as ‘a canary bird nest, in which are found three young by an unbroken egg, and the adult canary bird perches on the nest feeding the young.’ The two items seen here are almost identical in form. Other models have two birds on a nest, and typical species represented are canaries and finches, both of which were popular for their songs and kept as pets in ornamental cages. Kaendler modeled at least three bird sellers, one based on Christophe Huet’s Cris de Paris series in collaboration with Peter Reinicke, another of unspecified graphic origin, and yet another based on the Cryes of the City of London series after the engraving ‘ Buy a fine singing bird’ in Pierce Tempest’s publication of 1688. The original drawings were by Marcellus Laroon. See the ‘Quack Doctor with monkey’ (74.140) from the same series.; 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 nest is made of fine extrusions passed through metal dyes or mesh.; The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors.; 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.; See Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775,2002, p.18. 3. 1 Canari Vogel Nest, worinnen sich 3 junge nebst einem unausgebrütetem Ey befinden, und the alte Canari Vogel auf dem Nest sitzet und die jungen füttert.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 484-485.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.78.432A
catalog number: 78.432A
collector/donor number: 398
accession number: 1978.2185

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a pikeman

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a pikeman; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 4⅞" 12.4 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: 78.430; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 507; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (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, 1944.; 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.; In 1745 Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeled a series of soldier figures to be presented as a gift from the Saxon court for Karl Peter Ulrich von Holstein-Gottorp (later, and very briefly, Czar Peter III of Russia (1762)) who liked to play with toy soldiers throughout his adult life. This figure of a pikeman comes from that series, but originally appeared as a Saxon soldier dressed in a scarlet and white uniform.; Pikemen were in the front line of an advancing army. They lowered their pikes, consisting of a wooden shaft with a steel point on the end, to hinder the cavalry from breaking through to the ranks behind them. The pikemen caused injury to the horses, unseating their riders who were then open to attack from soldiers carrying muskets or swords.; War was seldom absent from European soil in the eighteenth century, and those that involved Saxony/Poland included the Great Northern War (1700-1721) between Russia and Sweden; the War of Polish Succession (1733-1735) in which Saxony/Poland was at the center of a conflict that spread to many parts of Europe; the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), which was a series of wars fought in an attempt to dismantle the Habsburg succession after the death of Charles VI in 1740; the Seven Years War of 1757-1763), a war that inflicted severe damage to Saxony at the hands of Prussia, and was the first global conflict with fighting between the French and the British in India and North America.; 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 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.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, p.456-457.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.78.430
catalog number: 78.430
collector/donor number: 507
accession number: 1978.2185

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a ballad seller

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a ballad seller; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 4⅞" 12.4 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: 78.431; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 506; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.; 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.; This figure of a ballad seller comes from Marcellus Laroon’s (the Elder 1653-1702) Cryes of the City of London Drawne after the Life, a set of engravings published in 1687 by Pierce Tempest (1653-1712). Laroon’s drawings of the vendors, entertainers, charlatans, and rogues who inhabited the commercial heart of London in the late seventeenth century is a rich compendium of urban street life when the city was the foremost financial, marketing, and maritime center in Europe.; The ballad seller depicted here, modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775), was known as Roger Teasdale, and his partner, Mrs. Parker, was modeled by Peter Reinicke. In Laroon’s original work the two ballad sellers are seen together with the caption “A Merry New Song.” The ballad is a form of narrative poetry, often sung to well-known tunes, and with a long history of use as a popular form of storytelling or the delivery of news about significant events of the time, usually with a ribald, scurrilous or satirical twist. Published in 1720, the ballad called The Infallible Doctor is a rare example of a quack doctor’s patter that might apply to the figure of the quack doctor, ID number 74.140.; 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. Figures from The Cries of London series were used for table decorations and collected for cabinet displays in private apartments.; 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 ballads see the Bodleian Library website: http:www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/ballads/images.htm; On the figures of Mrs. Parker and Roger Teasdale see Yvonne Adams, Meissen Figures 1730-1775 The Kaendler Years Atglen PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2001, p.41.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, p.458-459.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.78.431
catalog number: 78.431
collector/donor number: 506
accession number: 1978.2185

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen plate

Description: TITLE: Meissen plate; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: D. 9½" 24.2cm; OBJECT NAME: Plate; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1750-1760; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 63.242; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 8; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “61” impressed.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.; 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 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 plate has a spray of naturalistic flowers offset in the center with additional scattered flowers painted in overglaze enamels. 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 earlier style of German flowers (deutsche Blumen) Meissen painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s publication, the Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745), in which many of the plates were engraved after drawings by the outstanding botanical illustrator Georg Dionys Ehret (1708-. The more formally correct German flowers were superseded by mannered flowers (manier Blumen), depicted in a looser and somewhat overblown style based on the work of still-life flower painters and interior designers like Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) and Louis Tessier (1719?-1781), later referred to as “naturalistic” flowers.; The basket weave border on the rim is in shallow relief known as the old Ozier (Alt Ozier) pattern. Following the appointment to the manufactory in 1733 of court sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775), modeling techniques became more sophisticated. The process of creating shallow relief patterns on table wares was laborious and required considerable skill. The sources for designs in relief came from pattern books and engravings, especially those by the French designer Jean Bérain the Elder (1638-1711), and the Nuremberg designer Paul Decker (1677-1713) among many others. Their designs were applied in architecture, interior stucco work and wood carving, furniture, wall coverings, and ceramics. The “old ozier” pattern seen here was first recorded at Meissen in 1736 as the work of the modeler Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1695-1749); “ozier” refers to the French and English term “osier” for the willow native to European wetlands from which the strong and flexible twigs are used to make wickerwork baskets. Here we see an early relief pattern dating back to 1736 with a style of flower painting of about fifteen to twenty years later. Re-use of original models and patterns was not uncommon at Meissen, and old stock might well remain unpainted for many years.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit 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. Details in gold were applied by specialists in gold painting and polishing at Meissen. 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.; 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.; On the Alt Ozier pattern see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober, p.56.; 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.384-385.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750; 1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.63.242
catalog number: 63.242
accession number: 250446
collector/donor number: 8

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen cup and saucer (part of a service)

Description: TITLE: Meissen: Parts of a tea and coffee service (incomplete); MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 2 Cups: H. 2¾" 7cm; 2 Saucers: D. 5¼ 13.3cm; Teapot and cover: H. 4" 10.2cm;; Coffeepot and cover: H. 8¼" 21cm; Sugar bowl and cover: H. 4¼" 10.8cm; OBJECT NAME: Tea and coffee service (incomplete); PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1745-1750; SUBJECT:; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 1979.120.13Aa,b; 1979.120.14Ba,b; 1979.120.15a,b;1970.120.16a,b;1979.120.17a,b.; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 707 Aa,b; 707 Ba,b; 708a,b;709a,b;710a,b.; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “4” in gold on sugar bowl; various impressed numbers; “c” impressed on coffeepot and teapot.; PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1947.; This cup and saucer comes from a tea and coffee service in 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.; Heavy gold and black shell and scroll cartouches frame overglaze enamel paintings of Europeans, North Africans and Near Eastern peoples engaged in activities set in landscapes and in cities. For example, on the cover of the coffee pot a peddler rests against his basket and a man ties his boot lace; on a cup, North Africans mounted on horseback are seen near a fort; on a saucer, women launder clothes in a river. Sources for these enamel painted subjects came from book illustrations recording the occupations and peoples of foreign and European countries, and 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 1730s 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 illustrating the apparel and customs of the peoples of Europe and the wider world, for example: numerous volumes of Naukeurige beschrijvinge (Curious Descriptions) by Olfert Dapper published by Jacob van Meurs in Amsterdam of the peoples of Africa, the Near East, and Asia; Christoph Weigel’s, Neu-eröffnete Welt-Galleria, worinnen sehr curios und begnügt unter die Augen kommen allerley Aufzüg und Kleidungen unterschiedlicher Stäund Nationen (The New Gallery of the World, in which all sorts of the very curious Costumes and Garments of various Classes and Nations are set before the Eyes) Nuremberg, 1703.; The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes and subjects with figures 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. Ornamental gold painting was the work of another specialist.; 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 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. 322-323.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1745-1750; 1745-1750

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: 1979.0120.13ab
accession number: 1979.0120
catalog number: 1979.0120.13ab
collector/donor number: 707B

Data Source: National Museum of American History

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