Meissen figure of a boy
date: label: date made
content: ca 1775-1780
label: date made
content: 1775-1780
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure of a boy
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 7¾" 19.7cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1775-1780
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: 73.175
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 170
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content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords and star in blue on flat, unglazed base.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
label: Description
content: This figure 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: The boy stands with arms outstretched, and belongs to the later eighteenth-century Meissen models that represent children and family groups, subjects like The Good Mother and The Happy Parents. Many of these models were the work of the French modeler at Meissen, Michel Victor Acier (1736-1799), and the subjects appealed to the increasingly affluent middle class who bought figures and figure groups for display in their homes. Following the publication of Swiss born writer Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Émile in 1762, there was a surge of interest in the nurturing and education of children, and the importance of the parental role in their upbringing. Many of Acier’s subjects derived from engravings after the French artist Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who specialized in painting themes with strong moral content.
label: Description
content: Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.
label: Description
content: The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
label: Description
content: On Meissen porcelain after the Seven Years War of 1756-1763 see Anette Loesch, “Meissen Porcelain from 1763 to 1815” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp. 35-51.
label: Description
content: 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” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, p.476-477.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
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.73.175
label: catalog number
content: 73.175
label: accession number
content: 308538
label: collector/donor number
content: 170
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine
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: 7 3/4 in; 19.685 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 7 13/16 in x 4 in x 4 1/8 in; 19.84375 cm x 10.16 cm x 10.4775 cm