Meissen cup and saucer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1740
label: date made
content: 1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2⅝" 6.7cm; Saucer: D. 5⅛" 13.1cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 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: 1983.0565.23 ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 832 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; “F” in underglaze blue and “6” impressed on cup; “K” in underglaze blue and “O” impressed on saucer, possibly the former Johann Casper Hasse.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: E. Pinkus, New York, 1946.
label: Description
content: This cup and saucer 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 psychoanalysis 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: Painted on this cup and saucer in underglaze blue and onglaze purple and gold is the so-called little table pattern (Tischchenmuster) a Meissen adaptation of Far Eastern styles. There are many examples of this pattern and on this cup and saucer a wider range of colors; red, yellow and green enrich the mixed floral arrangement that extends to the rim of the saucer and around the cup. Typically the pattern has an abundance of flowers and foliage rising from behind a small table and garden fence, but on Japanese wares made for export the design is organized with a greater degree of symmetry more appealing to European taste, and which the Meissen designers further exploited here.
label: Description
content: Imari wares came from kilns in the north-western region of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island, near the town of Arita and were exported through the port of Imari. Decorated in the Aka-e-machi, the enameling center in Arita, Imari wares are generally distinguished from those made in the Kakiemon style by the darker palette of enamel colors and densely patterned surfaces, some of which are clearly derived from Japanese and South-East Asian textiles and known in Japan as brocade ware (nishiki-de), but there are considerable variations within this broad outline. Unlike the Kakiemon style a high proportion of Japanese Imari wares combined underglaze blue painting with overglaze enamel colors.
label: Description
content: The little table pattern was not in use on services for the Saxon and Polish royal households and it was particularly successful in the later eighteenth century, very likely appealing to consumers from the increasingly affluent entrepreneurial class in the German States, especially in cities like Leipzig and Berlin.
label: Description
content: The “little table pattern” is associated with the Imari style of decoration produced in Arita
label: Description
content: On the little table pattern see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, pp.95-103.
label: Description
content: For several examples of this pattern in polychrome see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 312-319.
label: Description
content: On Johann Casper Hasse see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p.110.
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 166-167.
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
label: See more items in
content: The Hans C. Syz Collection
label: See more items in
content: Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection
label: See more items in
content: Art
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0565.23ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.23ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 832ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cup
label: Object Name
content: saucer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: underglaze blue, polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: cup: 2 5/8 in; 6.6675 cm
label: Measurements
content: saucer: 5 1/8 in; 13.0175 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall cup: 2 7/8 in x 3 1/2 in x 2 7/8 in; 7.3025 cm x 8.89 cm x 7.3025 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall saucer: 1 1/8 in x 5 1/8 in; 2.8575 cm x 13.0175 cm