Meissen plate
date: label: date made
content: ca 1780
label: date made
content: 1780
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen: One of three plates
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: (85)D. 11¾" 29.9cm; (86A) D. 9½" 24.2cm; (86B) D. 9¼" 23.5cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Three plates
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1780
label: Description
content: SUBJECT:
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: 73.174B
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 86A
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 with star and “//” in underglaze blue; “13” impressed.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
label: Description
content: This plate is one of three in the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of Meissen Porcelain (see ID # 73.174B and 1992.0427.11). 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: Swags of flowers and blue ribbons frame the overglaze polychrome enamel painted subject in the center of the plate. The pastoral scene depicts a shepherd attending to his sheep in a setting alluding to antiquity in the block of masonry and a ruined tower in the background. This theme marked a transition from the rococo style to the neo-classical and is known in German as the Zopfstil , or late rococo classicizing style corresponding to the Louis XVI style in France. Zopf means pigtail or braid in German, and it was fashionable at the time for men and women to wear their hair with a braid falling down their backs. Braids and ribbons like those seen on the three plates ornamented furniture and interior décor carved in wood or stucco and often gilded.
label: Description
content: The Seven Years War of 1756-1763 brought Meissen’s production almost to a halt when Saxony was under Prussian occupation. In order to preserve the ‘secrets’ of porcelain manufacture much of the Meissen manufactory’s infrastructure was destroyed. The Saxon economy was severely weakened by the war which brought sales and commissions close to a standstill, and in addition Meissen faced growing competition from enterprises like Sèvres, Wedgwood, and the Thuringian manufactories. In 1764 the Dresden Academy of Art was reinstated, and part of its role in Saxon recovery was to educate the young and improve the standards of art and design in the studio and in the manufactories. Academicians from Dresden took responsibility for the art education of Meissen workers and introduced new designs to the manufactory in the Meissen Drawing School. Sometimes artists from Dresden painted Meissen wares and in this case the pastoral scenes were painted by Johann Carl Mauksch (1754-1721) who was listed as a student at the Dresden school for fine arts.
label: Description
content: On Meissen following the Seven Years War see Loesch, A., “Sentimental, Enlightened and Classical: Meissen Porcelain from 1763-1815” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 352-355.
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.73.174A
label: catalog number
content: 73.174A
label: accession number
content: 308538
label: collector/donor number
content: 86A
objectType: label: Object Name
content: dish
label: Object Name
content: plate
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: 9 1/2 in; 24.13 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 1/16 in x 9 7/16 in; 5.23875 cm x 23.97125 cm