Meissen sugar box and cover
date: label: date made
content: 1723-1724
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen sugar box and cover
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 3" 7.6cm; L. 4¼" 10.8cm
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content: OBJECT NAME: Sugar box
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: ca. 1722-1723
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content: SUBJECT: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 76.368ab
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 225
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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: “K.P.F.” (Königliche Porzellan Fabrik) in underglaze blue; red luster design inside box and cover
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
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content: This sugar box 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.
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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 sugar box has a landscape on the cover depicting a flock of birds rising above a gate entrance to a country property, and a tree silhouetted against the sky is seen on the left of the cover. On the box waterside scenes framed by scrolled cartouches typical of Meissen at this date are set against an expanse of sky with flocks of birds taking to the air; so-called Indian flowers (indianische Blumen) decorate the areas outside the frames.
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content: Sources for enamel painted harbor scenes and landscapes came from the large number of prints after paintings by Dutch masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1720s until the 1750s. The Meissen manufactory accumulated folios of prints, about six to twelve in a set, as well as illustrated books and individual prints after the work of many European artists, especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640). The artist Jan van de Velde II was a prolific printmaker in what was a thriving publishing industry in the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century. The folios of print series featuring landscapes, villages, country houses, and waterside scenes were intended to bring pleasure and repose to those who purchased them, especially to people living in the busy cities of the Republic, and this appeal endured well into the eighteenth century beyond the borders of the Netherlands.
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 (figures 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. Decorative scrollwork and gold painting was the responsibility of other painters specializing in this form of decoration. All enameled and gold painted items passed through several pairs of hands in their making.
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content: Tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar were luxury products for early eighteenth-century consumers, and the equipage for these hot beverages, made in silver and new ceramic materials like Meissen’s red stoneware and porcelain, was affordable only to the elite of European society. Less expensive versions for storing and preparing these products were made from various kinds of wood, from tin, from japanned materials, and in earthenware pottery.
label: Description
content: On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters see Möller, K. A., “’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on graphic originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 84-93.
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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.
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content: On prints from the Netherlands see Goddard, S. H., Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
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content: On tea, coffee, and chocolate equipage see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 102-103.
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
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr. Hans Syz
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.76.368ab
label: catalog number
content: 76.368ab
label: accession number
content: 1977.0166
label: collector/donor number
content: 225ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: box, sugar
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: orange (cover color)
label: Physical Description
content: orange (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 in x 4 1/4 in; 7.62 cm x 10.795 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 in x 4 5/16 in x 3 5/8 in; 7.62 cm x 10.9855 cm x 9.2075 cm