Meissen tankard (Hausmaler)
date: label: date made
content: ca 1715-1723
label: date made
content: 1715-1723
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen tankard and cover (Hausmaler)
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 7⅜" 19.7 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Tankard and cover
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1715-1723 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: 66.171
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 613
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: None
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Blumka Gallery, New York, 1947. Ex. Coll. Max Garr.
label: Description
content: This tankard 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 tankard was made in the Meissen manufactory but 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 tankard has a silver-gilt cover and the concentric rings were likely turned on a wheel or a horizontal lathe when the porcelain was in a ‘leather hard’ condition, and it is possible that this is an early example of Böttger porcelain painted at a later date by a Hausmaler. The identity of the painter of these delicate Chinese figures in a garden setting is probably Johann Philipp Dannhöffer (1712-1790) who first worked in Vienna before moving to Bayreuth in 1737, but some uncertainty remains ( see also the tea bowl and saucer: ID number 76.378).
label: Description
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.548-549.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
label: See more items in
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.66.171
label: catalog number
content: 66.171
label: accession number
content: 270694
label: collector/donor number
content: 613
objectType: label: Object Name
content: tankard
physicalDescription: 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: Physical Description
content: chinoiserie (joint piece style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 3/4 in; 19.685 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 11/16 in x 5 3/4 in x 4 1/8 in; 19.52625 cm x 14.605 cm x 10.4775 cm