Meissen teapot in the form of a monkey and young
date: label: date made
content: ca 1735
label: date made
content: 1735
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen teapot in the form of a monkey with young
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 6¾" 17.2cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Monkey teapot
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1735
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: 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: 1984.1140.15
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 549
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
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content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords in blue on unglazed base.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1945.
label: Description
content: This teapot in the form of a monkey with young 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 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.
label: Description
content: Molded in the shape of a monkey mother with two young forming the spout and handle, the model was the work of Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) and is mentioned in his work book entry for July 1735 (Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, Edition Leipzig, 2002, p.33). Several of these teapots exist, but most are painted. The cover for the bowl held by the young monkey on its mother’s back is missing.
label: Description
content: Monkeys were a common sight in the palaces and great houses of the eighteenth century. Popular pets, the belts worn by the monkeys in this teapot represent the means by which these animals were secured to a chain. They entertained city and country people at the seasonal fairs and festivals, teased them on the city streets, and performed tricks for their amusement under the direction of their human captors, so making them familiar to people across society. Monkeys were part of the trade in exotic animals from Africa, Central and South America, and Asia, and their fate in Europe was often to sicken and die when separated from their natural habitat in the ownership of Europeans ignorant of their needs.
label: Description
content: The teapot is an example of the popular series of vessels in the form of animals produced by European porcelain and earthenware manufacturers in the eighteenth century, although the zoomorphic vessel has a much longer and distinguished history that can be traced back to antiquity.
label: Description
content: An interesting account of the animal trade is in Robbins, L. E., 2002, Elephant Slaves and Pampered Parrots: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Paris.
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content: For a fine example of a painted version of this piece see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 492.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 272-273.
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: 1984.1140.15
label: catalog number
content: 1984.1140.15
label: accession number
content: 1984.1140
label: collector/donor number
content: 549
objectType: label: Object Name
content: teapot
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: white (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: monkey teapot (overall style)
label: Physical Description
content: monochrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 3/4 in; 17.145 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 3/4 in x 6 3/4 in x 3 1/2 in; 17.145 cm x 17.145 cm x 8.89 cm