Meissen figure of a child dressed in the Turkish style
date: label: date made
content: ca 1765-1770
label: date made
content: 1765-1770
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure of a boy in oriental dress
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: 4⅞" 12.4 cm.
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1765-1770
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: 1992.0427.16
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 264
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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: MARKS: “25” impressed.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
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: The boy strikes an attitude like that of a gentleman showing his figure in “Turkish” dress to advantage. Child figures joined the decorative table arrangements at grand court events where the court confectioners held responsibility for the theme and presentation of the dessert, which may have complemented an event where guests dressed in the “Turkish” style, or attended a masquerade in the exotic attire of middle and far eastern peoples that so fascinated Europe. To dress in the “Turkish” style was popular among the European aristocracy, the merchant and professional middle class in both formal and informal settings.
label: Description
content: Many of the child figures are diminutive versions of adult subjects, especially gardeners, earlier modeled by Kaendler and again retouched and repaired by Acier in the 1760s. Child musicians, vintners and street traders (see the pastry seller 1993.447.03), children impersonating characters from the Italian Comedy (see 1987.0896.31), children dancing (see 1992.0427.09), are common themes. Drawings by, and engravings after, the French painter François Boucher, were the models for many of the child figures, especially the pastoral subjects and flower girls.
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.
label: Description
content: The figure 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.
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content: On the European fascination with Turkish culture see Williams, H., 2014, Turquerie: An Eighteenth-Century European Fantasy.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei , pp. 468-469.
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: 1992.0427.16
label: accession number
content: 1992.0427
label: catalog number
content: 1992.0427.16
label: collector/donor number
content: 264
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamel and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: child figure (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 7/8 in; 12.3825 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 15/16 in x 2 9/16 in x 2 in; 12.54125 cm x 6.50875 cm x 5.08 cm