Meissen figure group of a seated nude woman with a child
date: label: date made
content: ca 1745
label: date made
content: 1745
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure group of a seated nude woman with a child
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: h. 8" 20.3 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure group
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1745
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
label: Description
content: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.62
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 238
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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: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
label: Description
content: This figure group 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: The seated nude woman holds a lively child in her arms. She sits on a roughly circular base decorated with applied flowers painted red, green, yellow and gold. The modeling is relaxed and consistent with the mood of the piece that has no obvious reference to a mythological subject.
label: Description
content: Meissen figures of this period evolved under the court sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) who became Modellmeister or master modeler at Meissen in 1733. It was he who established the appropriate scale and style for porcelain figures, informed by his training as a sculptor in other materials, and by the sensuous drama of baroque form. Kaendler introduced a novel type of small-scale sculpture in a new material imitated by numerous porcelain manufactories in Europe. This figure group was produced just before the rococo style took precedence over the baroque that had prevailed in art and architecture since the seventeenth century.
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 group is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.
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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: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 434-435.
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
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0565.62
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.62
label: collector/donor number
content: 238
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: nude female and child (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 in; 20.32 cm