Meissen figure of a grape seller
date: label: date made
content: ca 1750-1760
label: date made
content: 1750-1760
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure of a grape seller
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: 5¼" 14.6 cm.
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1753-1754
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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
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content: ID NUMBER: 76.371
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 243
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content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
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content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
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content: MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: E. Pinkus, New York, 1943.
label: Description
content: 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.
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: 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.
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: 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
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.
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content: On street traders see Shesgreen, S., 1990, The Criers and Hawkers of London: Engravings and Drawings by Marcellus Laroon.
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 454-455.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Saxony, Meissen
topic: label: Subject
content: Manufacturing
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: Dr. Hans Syz
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.76.371
label: catalog number
content: 76.371
label: accession number
content: 1977.0166
label: collector/donor number
content: 243
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 3/4 in; 14.605 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 5/8 in x 2 1/2 in x 2 1/8 in; 14.2875 cm x 6.35 cm x 5.3975 cm