Meissen two-handled cup and saucer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1730-1735
label: date made
content: 1730-1735
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen two-handled cup with saucer
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucer: D. 4½" 11.4 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1730-1735
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: 1983.0565.24 ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 627 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 “//” incised.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: H. Bachrach, London, England, 1947.
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 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 octagonal-shaped cup and saucer feature onglaze enamel painting in the Kakiemon style. On the saucer a so-called “phoenix” flies above stems of chrysanthemums in flower. The “phoenix’ in Chinese and Japanese mythology is not the same as the bird that renews itself in fire according to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures. The Chinese feng-huang and the Japanese hō-ō bird represent benevolence and wisdom, inhabiting the air and alighting on earth only at times of harmony and stability. Phoenix was a name chosen to represent the mythical bird by western observers and scholars of Chinese and Japanese cultures because of its superficial similarity to the fire bird or phoenix.
label: Description
content: Introduced to Japan from China during the Nara period (710-784) the chrysanthemum (kiku) became a popular decorative device on Japanese lacquer wares, textiles, and porcelain, assuming in Japan more symbolic importance than the peony in China. It is the symbol for the imperial family of Japan and chrysanthemum motifs decorate numerous consumer products today.
label: Description
content: Kakiemon is the name given to very white (nigoshida meaning milky-white) finely potted Japanese porcelain made in the Nangawara Valley near the town of Arita in the North-West of the island of Kyushu. The porcelain bears a characteristic style of enamel painting using a palette of translucent colors painted with refined assymetric designs attributed to a family of painters with the name Kakiemon.
label: Description
content: In the 1650s, when Chinese porcelain was in short supply due to civil unrest following the fall of the Ming Dynasty to the Manchu in 1644, Arita porcelain was at first exported to Europe through the Dutch East India Company’s base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. The Japanese traded Arita porcelain only with Chinese, Korean, and Dutch merchants and the Chinese resold Japanese porcelain to the Dutch in Batavia (present day Jakarta), to the English and French at the port of Canton (present day Guangzhou) and Amoy (present day Xiamen). Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, obtained Japanese porcelain through his agents operating in Amsterdam who purchased items from Dutch merchants, and from a Dutch dealer in Dresden, Elizabeth Bassetouche.
label: Description
content: For a detailed account of the Kakiemon style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; see also Impey, O., Jörg, J. A., Mason, C., 2009, Dragons, Tigers and Bamboo: Japanese Porcelain and its Impact in Europe, the Macdonald Collection; Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon.
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 168-169.
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
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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: 1983.0565.24ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.24ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 627ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cup
label: Object Name
content: saucer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (cup color)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (saucer color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (component surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: flowers and bird (joint piece description of decoration)
label: Physical Description
content: flowers and bird (overall description of decoration)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (cup material)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (saucer material)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: Kakiemon (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: cup: 2 in; 5.08 cm
label: Measurements
content: saucer: 4 1/2 in; 11.43 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall cup: 2 in x 4 in x 2 7/8 in; 5.08 cm x 10.16 cm x 7.3025 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall saucer: 1 1/8 in x 4 5/8 in x 4 5/8 in; 2.8575 cm x 11.7475 cm x 11.7475 cm