Meissen figure of a pikeman
date: label: date made
content: ca 1750
label: date made
content: 1750
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure of a pikeman
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 4⅞" 12.4 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1750
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: 78.430
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 507
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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.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
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: In 1745 Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeled a series of soldier figures to be presented as a gift from the Saxon court for Karl Peter Ulrich von Holstein-Gottorp (later, and very briefly, Czar Peter III of Russia (1762)) who liked to play with toy soldiers throughout his adult life. This figure of a pikeman comes from that series, but originally appeared as a Saxon soldier dressed in a scarlet and white uniform.
label: Description
content: Pikemen were in the front line of an advancing army. They lowered their pikes, consisting of a wooden shaft with a steel point on the end, to hinder the cavalry from breaking through to the ranks behind them. The pikemen caused injury to the horses, unseating their riders who were then open to attack from soldiers carrying muskets or swords.
label: Description
content: War was seldom absent from European soil in the eighteenth century, and those that involved Saxony/Poland included the Great Northern War (1700-1721) between Russia and Sweden; the War of Polish Succession (1733-1735) in which Saxony/Poland was at the center of a conflict that spread to many parts of Europe; the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748), which was a series of wars fought in an attempt to dismantle the Habsburg succession after the death of Charles VI in 1740; the Seven Years War of 1757-1763), a war that inflicted severe damage to Saxony at the hands of Prussia, and was the first global conflict with fighting between the French and the British in India and North America.
label: Description
content: Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully 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.
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content: The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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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, p.456-457.
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.78.430
label: catalog number
content: 78.430
label: collector/donor number
content: 507
label: accession number
content: 1978.2185
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figure
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: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 7/8 in; 12.3825 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 7/8 in x 3 1/2 in x 1 11/16 in; 12.3825 cm x 8.89 cm x 4.28625 cm