Meissen plates: one of a pair
date: label: date made
content: ca 1763-1774
label: date made
content: 1763-1774
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen: Two plates
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: D.9⅜" 23.8cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Plates
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1763-1774
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: 1992.0427.10 AB
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 78 AB
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; “10” impressed.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
label: Description
content: These plates are 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: Swags of flowers and a blue scale pattern frame the rims of the plates and a single exotic bird stands in the center framed by a trellis suggestive of a garden setting and painted in overglaze enamels. In the parks and gardens of the nobility colorful birds imported from overseas were a popular ornamental feature, and an aviary containing such birds was maintained at the castle of Moritzburg for the pleasure of the Dresden court. A possible graphic source for these birds is Gabriel Huquier’s Livre des Différentes Espèces d’Oiseaux de la Chine (Book of Different Species of Chinese Birds) published in Paris at an unknown date during the 1730s, or Jean Baptiste Oudry’s Oiseaux de la Chine (Birds of China) with engravings by Gabriel Huquier probably published in the 1730s.
label: Description
content: The specialist bird painters (Vogelmaler) at Meissen were low in number compared to the flower painters, but the term “color painter” (Buntmaler) was a fluid term indicating that painters moved from one category to another as demand required, especially for flower, fruit and bird subjects.
label: Description
content: Meissen trained its painters through apprenticeship before the Seven Years War (1756-1763), but in 1764 a drawing school was founded with a director, Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (1712-1774), who was painter to the court and a member of the Dresden Academy of Art. It was state policy to steer Saxon manufactures towards the new style emerging in France, and in Meissen’s case an attempt to maintain a competitive edge against new porcelain manufactories, especially that of Sèvres near Paris.
label: Description
content: These two plates, however, come from a dinner service in Meissen’s pre-war rococo style (ca. 1746-1756) and it was not uncommon for older stock to be painted at a later date.
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content: The blue scale pattern and the gold rim lines were applied by other workers specializing in these decorative embellishments.
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content: On the Meissen Manufactory following the Seven Years War see Anette Loesch “Meissen Porcelain from 1763-1815” in Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 34-51.
label: Description
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. 416-417.
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
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr Hans Syz
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1992.0427.10A
label: accession number
content: 1992.0427
label: catalog number
content: 1992.0427.10A
label: collector/donor number
content: 78A
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate
label: Object Type
content: plate
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: exotic birds (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 3/8 in; 23.8125 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/4 in x 9 5/16 in; 3.175 cm x 23.65375 cm