Meissen coffee pot and cover
date: label: date made
content: ca 1725-1730
label: date made
content: 1725-1730
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and cover
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 8⅝" 22cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
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content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: ca. 1725-1730
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: 1982.0796.07ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 300ab
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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: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “64” in gold (gold painter’s number); incised cross.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
label: Description
content: This coffeepot 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: The circular reserves framed in purple luster, iron-red enamel, and gold accentuate the rotund belly of this coffeepot with its generous scroll-shaped handle. In one reserve there is a Kauffahrtei (merchant) scene, and in the other a winter scene, both of which are characteristic of the work of seventeenth-century Dutch artists. At Meissen these subjects are associated with the work of Christian Friedrich Herold, although it is unlikely that he painted this coffeepot, but he may have introduced winter scenes to the Meissen painting division after the work of Jan van de Velde II (ca. 1593-1641), a prolific printmaker who specialized in landscape subjects; the wind-blown tree bare of leaves is emblematic of van de Velde’s works. A horse-drawn sledge struggles up an incline to the left of the scene with a windmill beyond, while another sledge stands loaded with passengers about to depart. In the foreground a man negotiates the icy surface in a pair of skates.
label: Description
content: The Kauffahrtei scene features three well-dressed merchants in foreign and European clothing possibly haggling over the price of goods piled behind them. Off-shore several small craft and larger sailing vessels stand at anchor. On the cover there is a continuous harbor scene of men working on the shoreline while others stand looking out towards the sea.
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (people and animals) were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary. The circular frames for the reserves were the work of another specialist in the painting division, and yet another worker completed the gold ornamentation and polishing.
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content: On the Meissen painter Christian Friedrich Herold see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.38.
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content: On Dutch printmaking see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries
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content: On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp.106-107.
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: 1982.0796.07ab
label: accession number
content: 1982.0796
label: catalog number
content: 1982.0796.07ab
label: collector/donor number
content: 300ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: coffeepot
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels, gold, and purple luster (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: waterside scenes (overall style)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 5/8 in; 21.9075 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 5/8 in x 6 1/4 in x 5 in; 21.9075 cm x 15.875 cm x 12.7 cm