Natural Resources

The Drying Shed

Location: Currently not on view

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

ID Number: ZZ.RSN82658T06

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Just a Little Stock

Description: Charcoal and watercolor drawing on beige paper that has been mounted on beige card using glue adhesive. The drawing depicts abstract figures, workers walking and siting under a covered area. An exhibit label attached to the work suggests that the workers are German prisoners. The abstract depictions are outlined in charcoal and pencil and have been filled in with green, red, and yellow paint.
Location: Currently not on view

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

ID Number: ZZ.RSN82658W71

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Paris porcelain milk jug and cover

Location: Currently not on view

date made: c.1775

ID Number: CE.P-105ab
catalog number: P-105ab
accession number: 225282

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sevres porcelain plate

Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1820-24; 1823

maker: Sevres

ID Number: CE.P-1055
catalog number: P-1055
accession number: 225282

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Paris porcelain coffee cup and saucer

Location: Currently not on view

date made: early nineteenth century

ID Number: CE.P-99ab
catalog number: P-99ab
accession number: 225282

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Paris porcelain vase (one of a pair)

Location: Currently not on view

date made: c. 1867

ID Number: CE.P-190
catalog number: P-190
accession number: 225282

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sèvres ewer

Location: Currently not on view

date made: c. 1831

ID Number: CE.P-804B
catalog number: P-804B
accession number: 225282

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

Sevres porcelain plate

Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1843

maker: Sevres

ID Number: CE.P-1058
catalog number: P-1058
accession number: 225282

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sèvres porcelain cup and saucer

Description: TITLE: Sèvres porcelain cup and saucer in the Egyptian style; MAKER: Sèvres Manufactory; PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material); MEASUREMENTS: Cup H. 1 7/8 x W. 4 3/16, 4.7cm. x 10.6cm; saucer D. 5 11/16, 14.4cm.; OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer; PLACE MADE: Sèvres, France; DATE MADE: 1813; SUBJECT: Art; Domestic Furnishing; Industry and Manufacturing; CREDIT LINE:; ID NUMBER: P-1069ab; COLLECTOR/ DONOR: Alfred Duane Pell.; MARKS: Manufacture Imperiale Sèvres, Imperial eagle, printed in red.; This richly decorated cup and saucer is shaped in the early nineteenth century Empire style, introduced to the Sèvres manufactory by Alexander Brogniart, the immensely talented administrator appointed to run the manufactory in 1800 following the upheavals of the French Revolution. The cup and saucer comes from a breakfast (cabaret) tea service that was a gift from Empress Marie-Louise, the second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte, to her lady-in-waiting, Marie-Madeleine Léjéas-Carpentier, Duchess of Bassano.; In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte sailed to Egypt with a large team of scientists, engineers, artists, and scholars appended to his army of about 20,000 troops who occupied Lower Egypt and chased the Mamluk Turks*, then rulers of the country, into Upper Egypt. Known as the savants, these men studied and recorded all that they saw of both ancient and modern Egypt. As an artist, art collector, and antiquarian, Dominique Vivant Denon marveled at the sites of Egyptian antiquity and recorded in drawings everything that he could get down on paper while traveling with a battalion of the French army into Upper Egypt. His drawings, later engraved and first published in the Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte in 1802, are still a valuable record of Egypt’s ancient sites before the archaeological excavations of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the construction of the first and second Aswan Dams.; Napoleon’s campaign was not a military success. His fleet was destroyed by the British at the Battle of Abū Qīr Bay near Alexandria on August 1, 1798, thus isolating the French army on land in Egypt and restoring British control of the Mediterranean Sea. His team of scientists, engineers and artists, however, were undoubtedly successful in bringing new knowledge of ancient Egypt to Europe and America. Denon’s Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte was a very successful publication and the spirited account of his experiences was soon translated into English and other languages.; Most of the decoration on the cup and saucer can be sourced to an illustration in Denon’s Voyages. The motifs can be seen on plate 117, Frises emblematique de different Temples égyptiens (Emblematique friezes in various Egyptian Temples) in which Denon’s original drawings are reproduced on the page. On the cup and saucer the motifs are modified, but on the exterior of the cup the falcon god Horus with wings unfurled resembles closely parts of the frieze recorded in Denon’s original drawings. The papyrus and lotus frieze on the saucer can also be seen on plate 117 of the 1829 edition of the Voyages (available online at NYPL Digital Collections). The two plants grew together on the banks of the Nile, and carried important symbolic meanings in Egyptian religious belief and in the state system where they represented the unification of the lower (papyrus) and upper Nile regions (lotus). Papyrus of course had great value as a material source for the making of paper and other items necessary in everyday life, and the young shoots of lotus and papyrus were eaten. The vertical “columns” on the cup and saucer are simplified versions of papyrus designs represented in Denon’s illustration. The borders on the rim of both the cup and saucer that carry a white five-pointed “star”with a red center can be seen in Owen Jones’ Grammar of Ornament on plate VII, number 30. The interior of the cup is gilded, and so is the handle with a green enamel chevron design in a leaf form. The exterior decoration is painted over a platinum ground, an early and rare example from the Sèvres manufactory.; Egypt fascinated the Greeks and Romans centuries before this cup and saucer was made in France. The Romans were great producers and consumers of things, and through their knowledge of Egyptian culture they “Egyptianized” their own villas, temples, and grand monuments with objects taken from Egypt itself, or made in imitation of Egyptian models. Through the centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire evidence of ancient Egypt slipped into obscurity, even in Rome itself as the city of imperial grandeur crumbled into ruin. Not until the European Renaissance, beginning in the fifteenth century, was the earlier fascination with Egypt revived, and by the late eighteenth century the process of rediscovering ancient Egypt was greatly enhanced by travelers from Europe documenting and publishing their experiences. Designers, artisans, and manufacturers were quick to pick up on the mystifying motifs, hieroglyphs, and iconic remains from Egyptian antiquity. The work of Denon and his fellow artists, scientists, surveyors and engineers, followed by the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs in the early-to-mid 1820s by the French linguist Jean François Champollion (1790-1832) brought to life the academic pursuit of Egyptology from which we have learned so much. Their discoveries also intensified popular interest in ancient Egypt that sparked the popular movement known as Egyptomania.; This cup and saucer belongs to the Alfred Duane Pell collection in the National Museum of American History. Before Pell (1864-1924) became an Episcopalian clergyman quite late in life, he and his wife Cornelia Livingstone Crosby Pell (1861-1938) travelled widely, and as they travelled they collected European porcelains, silver, and furniture. Pell came from a wealthy family and he purchased the large William Pickhardt Mansion on 5th Avenue and East 74th Street in which to display his vast collection. The Smithsonian was one of several institutions to receive substantial bequests from the Reverend Pell which laid the foundation for their collections of European applied arts.; * Mamluk. Originally an army of slaves recruited in the 9th century Abbasid Caliphate (Mamluk means “owned” or “slave” in Arabic), the Mamluks (or Mamelukes) became powerful military rulers in the Islamic world, notably so in Egypt until 1811.; Information on the provenance of the cup and saucer was obtained online from the Paris dealership Royal Provenance: http://royalprovenance.com/?p=1.; Bob Brier, Napoleon in Egypt, exhibition catalog Hillwood Art Museum, Brookville, New York: 1990.; Bob Brier, Egyptomania: Our Three Thousand Year Obsession with the Land of the Pharaohs, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.; James Stevens Curl, Egyptomania, the Egyptian Revival: a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1994.; Egyptomania: Egypt in Western Art 1730-1930, exhibition catalog, National Gallery of Canada with the Louvre, Paris, 1994.; Liana Paredes, 2009, Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain 1750-2000.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1813-1814

maker: Sevres

ID Number: CE.P-1069ab
accession number: 225282
catalog number: P-1069ab

Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sèvres compote bowl (part of a service)

Description: The compote bowl comes from a service that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) gave to his sister Pauline (1780-1825) when she established a home in Paris at the hôtel de Charost. The pale lilac used as a ground color was fashionable in post-revolutionary France, a time when interior designers experimented with new and unusual colors and color combinations, and one of the boudoirs in the hôtel de Charost was painted in a similar color. The figure subjects are painted in brown and highlighted in gold on a ground painted to imitate marble. On one side the subject appears to be Mars the god of war with helmet, club, and vulture at his feet, his chariot drawn by three hybid monsters, but we see also the attributes of other gods like Mercury's staff, and neptunes trident. On the other side of the bowl the subject of a female figure in a chariot drawn by cupids holding flaming torches is also not clear. Two Roman heads in profile are painted on medallions with marble grounds, and framed by gold stars, purple beads and foliate ornament.; The compote's light lilac ground has dark purple ornament painted in overglaze enamel. A Greek key pattern circles the bowl below the rim, and a foliate frieze circles the base of the bowl where it meets the foot. The foot stem supporting the bowl is heavily gilded, and a band of gold circles the interior of the compote, which is otherwise left undecorated.; See Liana Paredes, 2009, exhibition catalog “Sèvres Then and Now: Tradition and Innovation in Porcelain, 1750-2000”, p.73, p.148.; This compote belongs to the Alfred Duane Pell collection in the National Museum of American History. Before Pell (1864-1924) became an Episcopalian clergyman quite late in life, he and his wife Cornelia Livingstone Crosby Pell (1861-1938) travelled widely, and as they travelled they collected European porcelains, silver, and furniture. Pell came from a wealthy family and he purchased the large William Pickhardt Mansion on 5th Avenue and East 74th Street in which to display his vast collection. The Smithsonian was one of several institutions to receive substantial bequests from the Reverend Pell which laid the foundation for their collections of European applied arts.
Location: Currently not on view