Meissen mug (Hausmaler)
date: label: date made
content: ca 1715-1720
label: date made
content: 1715-1720
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen mug (Hausmaler)
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: 4⅜" 11.1 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Mug
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1715-1720 Meissen
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: 1987.0896.41
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 947
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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: None
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Blumka Gallery, New York City, 1953.
label: Description
content: This mug 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 mug was made possibly in the Meissen manufactory, although it could be from the DuPaquier manufactory in Vienna, but it was painted 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 mug is painted with a harbor scene in iron red and black (schwarzlot) by the Preissler family workshop in Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland). There is a firing defect on the base of the interior disguised by a realistic fly painted in black.
label: Description
content: The source for the harbor scene is likely one of the many prints circulating in artisan workshops after the paintings of Dutch artists of the mid-to-late 1600s that retained their popularity well into the eighteenth century.
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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.524-525.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Saxony, Meissen
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: 1987.0896.41
label: catalog number
content: 1987.0896.41
label: accession number
content: 1987.0896
label: collector/donor number
content: 947
objectType: label: Object Name
content: mug
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: iron-red and black (Schwarzlot) (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: harbor scene (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 3/8 in; 11.1125 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 3/8 in x 4 7/8 in x 3 7/16 in; 11.1125 cm x 12.3825 cm x 8.73125 cm