Meissen figure group of Dutch peasants dancing
date: label: date made
content: ca 1740-1750
label: date made
content: 1740-1750
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure group of Dutch peasants dancing
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 5½" 14 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure group
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content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1746-1750
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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
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content: ID NUMBER: 76.370
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 526
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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.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Paul Lane, 1944.
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content: This figure group 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 Germany, 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: Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749) modeled the figures of Dutch Peasants (Holländische Bauern)based on a work with the title Gustus (Latin for taste or appetite) by the artist Gottfried Bernhard Göz (1708-1774) who specialized in genre subjects and large scale allegorical and religious works.
label: Description
content: With Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) Eberlein made a series of figures of peasants engaged in various activities like taking a goat to market, cutting wood (see ID number 75.189), playing the hurdy-gurdy, harvesting produce, taking snuff, drinking, and individual figures dancing. Another model of dancing peasants, but more finely dressed, was made by Eberlein in about 1740. Used by the court confectioners for table decorations these figures augmented the structures made out of sugar and other materials for the elaborate displays designed to serve the dessert on festive occasions. The Dresden court dressed themselves as rural peasants at these events with the pretense of entering a way of life the social elites observed but did not experience.
label: Description
content: Meissen figures and figure groups were usually modeled in clay, and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds were made. Porcelain clay was then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original state, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece was then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work was arduous and required the making of many molds from the original model.
label: Description
content: The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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content: On Bernhard Goz see Möller, K.A., “ ’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’Meissen Pieces based on Graphic Originals”, and on the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” both authors in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, p.88 and pp.61-67.
label: Description
content: On the dessert table see Maureen Cassidy-Geiger, 'The Hof Conditorey in Dresden: Traditions and Innovations in Sugar and Porcelain', in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 121-131. See also Ivan Day, 'Sculpture for the Eighteenth Century Garden Dessert', in
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 436-437.
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: CE.76.370
label: catalog number
content: 76.370
label: collector/donor number
content: 526
label: accession number
content: 1977.0166
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figure group
label: Object Name
content: figurine, group
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (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: 5 1/2 in; 13.97 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 7/16 in x 3 11/16 in x 2 1/2 in; 13.81125 cm x 9.36625 cm x 6.35 cm