Meissen figure: allegory of the seasons (autumn)

Object Details

Description

TITLE: Meissen figure of a man with grapes

MAKER: Meissen Manufactory

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)

MEASUREMENTS: 5⅝" 14.3 cm

OBJECT NAME: Figure

PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany

DATE MADE: 1745-1755

SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection

Art

Domestic Furnishing

Industry and Manufacturing

CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection

ID NUMBER: 78.429

COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 328

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, 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.

Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) may have modeled this figure to represent fall in a group emblematic of the Four Seasons. There are several models of vintners but this figure is designed to hold condiments in the basket alongside the figures representing winter, spring, and summer and was part of a group in a plat de ménage, a centerpiece for the table that held salt, pepper, spices, mustards and lemons. Allegorical groups representing the seasons, the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, the four continents of the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Africa, the four senses of touch, smell, sight, and sound, were modeled at Meissen in several versions. This figure belongs to a group that is modest in comparison to the more ambitious and larger scale plats de ménage.

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. On the plat de ménage in the same publication see p. 112.

Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, p.454-455.

Location

Currently not on view

Credit Line

Dr. Hans Syz

ca 1745-1755

1745-1755

ID Number

CE.78.429

catalog number

78.429

accession number

1978.2185

collector/donor number

328

Object Name

figurine

Physical Description

blue (overall color)

polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)

ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)

Measurements

overall: 5 5/8 in x 3 1/2 in x 2 5/8 in; 14.2875 cm x 8.89 cm x 6.6675 cm

See more items in

Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass

The Hans C. Syz Collection

Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection

Domestic Furnishings

National Museum of American History

Record ID

nmah_579861

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a3-f3a8-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa