Meissen Böttger porcelain tray (Hausmaler)
date: label: date made
content: 1730-1735
label: date made
content: ca 1730
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen tray (Hausmaler)
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: L. 10⅜" 26.3cm; W. 7⅛" 18.1cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Tray
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1730
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
label: Description
content: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
label: Description
content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565. 68
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 493
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords and a “Z” in underglaze blue.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
label: Description
content: This tray 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 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.
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: The tray was made in the Meissen manufactory but decorated outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
label: Description
content: The tray was made from the new Meissen porcelain body that used feldspar as a flux to reduce the temperature at which the kaolin vitrified; it has a cold white glaze, rather than the creamier quality of the Böttger porcelains that used alabaster as a flux.
label: Description
content: On this tray the underglaze blue decoration of Chinese figures in a garden was painted at Meissen in the early 1730s, probably by Friedrich August Zimmerman who used the letter “Z” to mark his work. The Hausmaler painted gold over the interior of the tray, and engraved a scene of European figures in a garden over the Chinese originals. Only by transmitted light can we see the scene painted by Zimmerman in underglaze blue.
label: Description
content: On the Augsburg Hausmaler and the technique of gold engraving see Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien.
label: Description
content: On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 502-503.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
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content: The Hans C. Syz Collection
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content: Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection
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content: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishings
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Hans C. Syz Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0565.68
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.68
label: collector/donor number
content: 493
objectType: label: Object Name
content: platter
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste Boettger porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: underglaze blue painted; ovepainted in gold and engraved (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: chinoiserie (joint piece style)
label: Physical Description
content: gilt (overall production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: Hausmaler (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 1/8 in x 10 3/8 in; 18.0975 cm x 26.3525 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/4 in x 10 3/8 in x 7 3/16 in; 3.175 cm x 26.3525 cm x 18.25625 cm