Meissen Böttger porcelain bowl and cover
date: label: date made
content: 1713-1720
label: date made
content: ca 1713-1720
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen bowl and cover (Hausmaler)
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 5½" 14cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Covered bowl
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1717-1720
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: 1983.0565.63 a,b
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 689
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
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content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: None
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1947.
label: Description
content: This covered bowl is from the Smithsonian’s Hans Syz Collection of European 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 psychoanalysis 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 covered bowl was made in the Meissen manufactory but possibly painted outside by an independent artist in Augsburg. The ornamental motifs, however, are not typical of the work of known Hausmaler in that city, and the work might be that of a Dresden workshop. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin.
label: Description
content: Böttger porcelain, decorated in gold was sent either to Dresden goldsmithing workshops or to the Hausmaler workshops in Augsburg. Objects previously assumed to be Augsburg Hausmaler work are now thought to have been gilded in Dresden, and this covered bowl may be one of those pieces. Dresden decorators used ducat gold, which was reputedly purer than the metal used in Augsburg, but without analysis of the gold on objects decorated in the two cities it is difficult to confirm where an item like this covered bowl was painted. If it was decorated in Augsburg the Seuter workshop would have carried out the work after 1722 and before 1730.
label: Description
content: The covered bowl has the form of an object originally made in metal, probably silver, and it might have had a saucer or stand. If decorated in Dresden the most likely workshop would be that of the goldsmith George Funcke, who also painted delicate polychrome enamels on Meissen porcelain before Johan Georg Höroldt arrived at the Meissen manufactory.
label: Description
content: See Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, p. 179-180.
label: Description
content: On the Augsburg Hausmaler Abraham Seuter see Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien, and for a comparable object see p. 250.
label: Description
content: On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46, and for a similar object see p.505.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Huasmaler, pp. 490-491.
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: Hans C. Syz Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0565.63ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.63ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 689
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bowl, sugar
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste Boettger porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: painted in onglaze gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: gilt (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/2 in; 13.97 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/2 in x 5 7/8 in x 4 1/2 in; 13.97 cm x 14.9225 cm x 11.43 cm