Meissen vinegar pot
date: label: date made
content: ca 1730-1735
label: date made
content: 1730-1735
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen vinegar pot for a plat de ménage
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 6⅞" 17.5cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Vinegar pot
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1735
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: 71.201 a,b
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 744 a,b
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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 in underglaze blue.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: S. Berges, New York, 1947.
label: Description
content: This vinegar pot 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 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: This vinegar pot was part of a plat de ménage that served as a centerpiece on the dining or banqueting table, also known as an ‘Epargne’ from the French épargner’ meaning to serve and often made in silver or silver gilt. The plat de ménage held cruet sets containing various condiments like oil and vinegar, mustard, salt, spices, and sugar for guests to season their food during service in the French style of three main savory courses before the often spectacular dessert. The vinegar pot’s partner was the oil pot, and the Meissen modelers designed the vinegar pot with a grimacing mask at the base of the spout as can be seen here, whereas the oil pot sometimes has a mask that smiles affably. The two containers were used for dressing salads and vegetables in much the same way as some people choose to do today. The largest vessel on a plat de ménage was the lemon basket and in later models centerpieces were exploited by the Meissen modelers for their sculptural potential by introducing figures and elaborate ornamentation.
label: Description
content: The vinegar pot has a double scroll handle and the long thin spout allows for better control in pouring the liquid onto the food. The cover has a finial in the shape of an artichoke. A band of egg and dart raised molding separates flying phoenixes in the upper section of the pot (Ho-ho birds in Japanese mythology with different aspects to the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern phoenix). In the lower band are rice bundle straw fences and flowering tree peonies. Apart from the enamel painted pattern the oil pot is a product of the European baroque style and no such vessel existed in China or Japan unless copied for export after European models. This pot and the oil pot similar to it except for the painted subjects (ID# 71.202 a,b) derive their shape and ornament from contemporary European silver vessels for a plat de ménage.
label: Description
content: On the ‘plat de ménage’ see Hantschmann, K., “The ‘plat de ménage’: The Centrepiece on the Banqueting Table”, in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 106-119.
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content: For a sugar caster with a similar onglaze enamel pattern see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p.282; see also Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, p.229. Johann Joachim Kaendler’s work book records two occasions when he modeled oil and vinegar pots, in June 1733 and January 1734, but it is not clear to which version this pot belongs, see Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, 2002 , pp.19-20, p. 22.
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 158-159.
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
label: See more items in
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.71.201ab
label: catalog number
content: 71.201ab
label: collector/donor number
content: 744ab
label: accession number
content: 297499
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pot, vinegar
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 (cover material)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: kakiemon (joint piece style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 7/8 in; 17.4625 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 25/32 in x 5 1/8 in x 3 1/2 in; 17.2339 cm x 13.0175 cm x 8.89 cm