Meissen pot and cover
date: label: date made
content: ca 1730
label: date made
content: 1730
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen three-footed broth pot and cover
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 5⅛" 13.1cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Covered pot
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1735-1740
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: 1983.0565.35ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 240ab
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue and “K” in underglaze blue (painter’s mark).
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, 1943.
label: Description
content: This three-footed broth or soup pot and cover 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: With three claw feet and an artichoke finial on the cover this pot has a continuous band of flowering tree peonies or camelias painted around the belly of the pot and on the cover which also has a foliate border painted in iron-red and sea-green. Stylized butterflies also form part of this design. The Meissen painter has followed the Chinese Imari style in the onglaze enamel design with the pattern akin to the so-called branch or Astmuster. The pot was once paired with a saucer and this popular type of vessel was used for serving restorative soups and broths to invalids.
label: Description
content: Chinese porcelain production in the manufacturing center of Jingdezhen was thrown into disarray when civil unrest followed the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Qing in 1644. The Dutch East India Company turned to Japan where the production of exceptionally fine porcelain was well received in Europe. The Chinese re-entered the export market in the late seventeenth century and by the early 1700s Chinese porcelain painters were imitating Japanese Imari wares for the European and Asiatic trade. With a much smaller manufacturing base Japan could not compete when China began to produce imitations of Japanese Imari wares for which there was a high demand in Europe. By the middle of the eighteenth century Japanese porcelains were no longer competitive in quantity or price.
label: Description
content: Original Japanese Imari collected by the European aristocracy was much admired for its opulent decorative style. When no longer imported to Europe imitations of the Imari style gained wider popularity later in the eighteenth century, most notably in the products of the English Worcester and Derby porcelain manufactories. Royal Crown Derby continues to produce a derivative pattern called Traditional Imari today.
label: Description
content: For a detailed account of the Imari style see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750. See also: Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection; Goro Shimura, 2008, The Story of Imari: the Symbols and Mysteries of antique Japanese Porcelain; Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon
label: Description
content: For more information on this type of vessel see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 201-203.
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 212-213.
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: 1983.0565.35ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.35ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 240ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pot
label: Object Name
content: Jar
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: kakiemon (joint piece style)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: Imari (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/8 in; 13.0175 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/4 in x 5 5/16 in x 4 1/4 in; 13.335 cm x 13.5255 cm x 10.795 cm