Natural Resources

automobile body

date made: 1950s

ID Number: 1978.2349.03
accession number: 1978.2349
catalog number: 1978.2349.03

Data Source: National Museum of American History

autombile, parts of

date made: 1950s

ID Number: 1978.2349.04
accession number: 1978.2349
catalog number: 1978.2349.04

Data Source: National Museum of American History

stencil

date made: 1950s

ID Number: 1978.2349.06
accession number: 1978.2349
catalog number: 1978.2349.06

Data Source: National Museum of American History

stencil

date made: 1950s

ID Number: 1978.2349.05
accession number: 1978.2349
catalog number: 1978.2349.05

Data Source: National Museum of American History

The Drying Shed

Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1914-1919
associated date: 1914 - 1918

ID Number: ZZ.RSN82658W72

Data Source: National Museum of American History

One of the Store-Rooms for Finished Camouflage Material

Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1914-1918
associated date: 1914 - 1918

ID Number: ZZ.RSN82658W90

Data Source: National Museum of American History

1900 - 1950 William Skinner and Sons Satin Quilted Square

Description: This padded and quilted blue satin square, produced by William Skinner and Sons, was probably a sales model used at their New York City store. The sample is padded and hand quilted in a 2¾-inch grid pattern. Extra filling in the unquilted borders makes them higher than the quilted surface.; In the early 20th-century, William Skinner and Sons was a prominent silk production and textile manufacturer. From 1874 the manufacturing business was located in Holyoke, Massachusetts. After the death of the founder, William Skinner in 1902, his sons took over the business. The family sold the business to Indian Head Mills in 1961. This square is an example of “Skinner’s Satins,” as they were popularly known.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1900-1950

maker: unknown

ID Number: TE.T07005
accession number: 119013
catalog number: T07005

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Meissen figure of a grape seller

Description: TITLE: Meissen figure of a grape seller; MAKER: Meissen Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: 5¼" 14.6 cm.; OBJECT NAME: Figure; PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany; DATE MADE: 1753-1754; SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection; Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection; ID NUMBER: 76.371; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 243; ACCESSION NUMBER:; (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center); MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.; PURCHASED FROM: E. Pinkus, 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.; Paris and London, two bustling commercial cities, generated a large population of street vendors providing hot beverages like coffee and chocolate, bread rolls, pies, and buns. Fruits and vegetables from nearby farms were sold when in season, as well as luxury fruits like oranges and lemons imported from Spain. Grapes, which this young man sells, were of course available in France, but had to be transported across country to Paris. Herbs and items like watercress were collected in the countryside and sold on the streets for use in salads and for medicinal purposes.; This figure, probably modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler(1706-1775) and Peter Reinicke (1715-1768, belongs to a series taken from designs for the Cries of Paris by the Parisian engraver Christophe Huet (1692-1765), and possibly commissioned by Johann Joachim Kaendler on a visit to Paris in the early 1750s. In this second series of the Cries of Paris the style of modeling is less animated than the earlier group modeled by Kaendler after the drawings by Edmé Bouchardon. The figure carries a pair of scales over his left arm for weighing the grapes.; The subject of street traders in the visual arts has a long history reaching back into the cities of the ancient world. City inhabitants, especially the working poor who lived in cramped accommodations with little or no facilities for cooking, depended heavily on the fast food and drink provided by street vendors and bake houses. Street sellers were themselves poor, and the range of goods sold or bartered varied widely, limited only by what could be carried by the individual, wheeled in a barrow, or loaded onto a donkey, mule or ass sometimes pulling a cart. People of a higher social class regarded street traders with contempt on the one hand, but also as colorful curiosities on the other, often in conflict with one another and with city authorities. In 1500, a series of anonymous woodcuts titled the Cries of Paris was an early example of what became a highly popular genre in print form well into the nineteenth century, and especially so in commercially active cities like Paris and London where street sellers formed not only part of the spectacle of display and consumption, but also the raucous sound of the street as they vocalized their merchandise; Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then 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 and gold.; On street traders see Shesgreen, S., 1990, The Criers and Hawkers of London: Engravings and Drawings by Marcellus Laroon.; On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.; Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 454-455.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1750-1760; 1750-1760

maker: Meissen Manufactory

ID Number: CE.76.371
catalog number: 76.371
accession number: 1977.0166
collector/donor number: 243

Data Source: National Museum of American History

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