Meissen spoon tray (part of a tea and coffee service)
date: label: date made
content: ca 1730-1740
label: date made
content: 1730-1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen coffee service
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Coffee pot and cover: H. 9¼" 23.5cm; Waste bowl: D. 6" 15.3cm; Sugar bowl and cover: H. 4½" 11.5cm; Milk jug and cover: H. 4⅜" 11.1cm; spoon tray: L. 6⅜" 16.2cm; Tea bowl: H. 1¾" 4.5cm; Saucer: D. 5" 12.8cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Coffee service
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1730-1740
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: 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: Coffeepot and cover 1983.0565.17ab; Waste bowl 1983.0565.18; Sugar bowl and cover 1983.0565.19ab; Milk jug 1983.0565.20ab; Oval dish 1983.0565.21; Two tea bowls and saucers 1983.0565.22Aab,Bab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 267ab;269;271ab;137ab;136;138Aab,Bab
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 in underglaze blue.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, 1942/1943.
label: Description
content: This spoon tray from a coffee service is in 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 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: Painted on this coffee service in underglaze blue and onglaze purple and gold is the so-called “little table” pattern (Tischchenmuster), a Meissen adaptation of Far Eastern styles. There are many examples of this pattern and some of the finest have a wider range of colors to include flowers and foliage in red, yellow and green. Typically the pattern has an abundance of flowers rising from behind a small table that stands before a stylized garden fence, and the Japanese producers of porcelain in Arita developed designs of this kind for the European market where the symmetry of the pattern that grows to fill the space available appealed to European taste. Meissen designers developed the pattern further from prototypes in the Dresden collection with characteristics of both Imari and Kakiemon styles. Meissen’s “little table” pattern was popular, but not in use on services for the Saxon and Polish royal household; it appears only on tea and coffee services produced at the Meissen Manufactory very likely for consumers from the increasingly affluent entrepreneurial class in the German States, especially in cities like Leipzig and Berlin.
label: Description
content: For more examples of the little table pattern see Pietsch, U., 2010, Passion for Meissen: The Said and Roswitha Marouf Collection, pp. 338-342; Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 95-103; Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 312-319;
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 166-167.
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: 1983.0565.21
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.21
label: collector/donor number
content: 136
objectType: label: Object Name
content: dish, oval
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: underglaze blue, purple enamel, and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: kakiemon and Imari (European adaptation) (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 3/8 in; 16.1925 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/2 in x 6 7/8 in x 5 1/4 in; 3.81 cm x 17.4625 cm x 13.335 cm