Meissen coffee pot and cover
date: label: date made
content: ca 1745-1750
label: date made
content: 1745-1750
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and cover
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 8⅞" 22.5cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
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content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: ca.1745-1750
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content: SUBJECT:
label: Description
content: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.46 a,b
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 108 a,b
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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; large incised “N” or “2”.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
label: Description
content: This coffeepot 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 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 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: The coffeepot has two scenes based on the French fêtes galantes; on one side a young man serenades a young woman on his flute and on the other side the instrument played is a guitar. The shape of the coffeepot is one commonly used at Meissen in the 1740s and 1750s and based on metal prototypes.
label: Description
content: In the work of French artist Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) we see the development of the fêtes galantes based on the outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol. Watteau’s works depicted conversational, theatrical, and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, and they struck a chord with living protagonists.
label: Description
content: In the early 1740s the manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the Meissen painters based their “Watteauszenen” (Watteau scenes), and they became so much in demand that eleven painters were appointed to specialize in work on this theme. The figure of the man playing a lute can be seen on another item in the Hans Syz Collection, on the saucer of ID number 1989.0715.04.
label: Description
content: The subject has its origins in a painting by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) titled L’Enchanteur in which a young man serenades and attempts to engage the interest of two women seated in a park while a male figure stands in the shadows behind them. The subject was engraved by Benoît Audran II (1698-1772). There is a Meissen saucer with the same subject in the collection of Constance I. and Ralph H. Wark at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida. See Ulrich Pietsch, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum and Art Gallery (The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens and D.Giles Ltd: Jacksonville FL and London UK, 2011) p.415.
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content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes and subjects with figures were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage.
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content: Ornamental gold painting and polishing was the work of other specialists in the manufactory.
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content: On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.
label: Description
content: On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collectio: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 332-333.
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: 1983.0565.46ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.46ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 108
objectType: label: Object Name
content: coffeepot
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: scenes in the style of Watteau (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 7/8 in; 22.5425 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 in x 6 5/16 in x 4 5/8 in; 22.86 cm x 16.03375 cm x 11.7475 cm