Meissen cup and saucer

Object Details

Meissen Manufactory

Description

TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer

MAKER: Meissen Manufactory

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)

MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 1¾ 4.5cm; Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1cm.

OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer

PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany

DATE MADE: ca. 1740

SUBJECT: Art

Domestic Furnishing

Industry and Manufacturing

CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection

ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.16ab

COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 183ab

ACCESSION NUMBER:

(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)

MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “N” in iron-red; “44” impressed on cup; “66” impressed on saucer (former’s numbers).

PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.

This cup and saucer is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain. Dr. Syz (1894-1991) began his collection in the early years of World War II, when he purchased eighteenth-century Meissen table wares from the Art Exchange run by the New York dealer Adolf Beckhardt (1889-1962). Dr. Syz, a Swiss immigrant to the United States, collected Meissen porcelain while engaged in a professional career in 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 white cup and saucer have onglaze enamel painted scenes of Dutch merchants and harbor workers engaged in loading or unloading goods and conducting business on the quayside. The harbor scenes of the seventeenth century represented to the Dutch their success in trade from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the Far East at a time when the Republic was the most prosperous seafaring nation in Europe. The popularity of these subjects extended into the eighteenth century, and introduced at Meissen in the 1720s these so-called Kauffahrtei remained in the manufactory’s repertoire 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 Dutch artists, especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640). Printed images enriched people’s lives and a series of prints might take the viewer on a journey, real or imaginary. Prints performed a role in European visual culture later extended by photography and film, and they provided artisans and artists with images, motifs, and patterns applied in many branches of the applied arts.

The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (figures and animals) were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. The gold rim lines were the work of another specialist in the painting division.

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. 310-311.

Location

Currently not on view

ca 1740

1740

ID Number

1987.0896.16ab

catalog number

1987.0896.16ab

accession number

1987.0896

collector/donor number

183ab

Object Name

cup

saucer

Physical Description

blue (cup color)

blue (saucer color)

orange (cup color)

orange (saucer color)

polychrome (component surface decoration color name)

harbor scenes (joint piece description of decoration)

harbor scenes (overall description of decoration)

ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (cup material)

hard-paste porcelain (overall material)

polychrome enamel and gold (overall color)

harbor scenes (overall style)

Measurements

cup: 1 3/4 in; 4.445 cm

saucer: 5 1/8 in; 13.0175 cm

overall cup: 1 7/8 in x 4 in x 3 1/4 in; 4.7625 cm x 10.16 cm x 8.255 cm

overall saucer: 1 1/8 in x 5 1/4 in; 2.8575 cm x 13.335 cm

place made

Germany: Saxony, Meissen

See more items in

Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass

The Hans C. Syz Collection

Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection

Art

Domestic Furnishings

National Museum of American History

Record ID

nmah_1415550

Metadata Usage (text)

CC0

GUID (Link to Original Record)

https://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746b2-bedc-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa