Meissen plate
date: label: date made
content: ca 1760
label: date made
content: 1760
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen plate
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: D. 9½" 24.2cm
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content: OBJECT NAME: Plate
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content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1760
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content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
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content: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
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content: ID NUMBER: 63.243
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 955
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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; “K.H.K/4” in overglaze purple; “22” impressed.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1954.
label: Description
content: This plate 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 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: The plate has a diaper basket weave pattern that covers the surface except for the four reserves in which sprays of flowers are painted in onglaze enamels. Modeled in light relief the process of carving a relief pattern into plaster of Paris was laborious and required considerable skill. The sources for designs in relief came from pattern books and engravings, especially those by the French designer Jean Bérain the Elder (1638-1711), the Nuremberg designer Paul Decker (1677-1713), and the later rococo designer, François Cuvilliés the Elder (1695-1768). Their designs were applied in architectural details, interior stucco work and wood carving, on furniture, wall coverings, and ceramics.
label: Description
content: European flower decoration was informed by printed books acquired by the Meissen manufactory in response to the growing fascination for the natural sciences among the educated elite. For the earlier German flowers (deutsche Blumen) the painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745). The botanical style of flower painting at Meissen developed into the looser and somewhat overblown mannered flowers (manier Blumen) based on the work of still-life flower painters and interior designers like Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) and Louis Tessier (1719?-1781), later referred to as naturalistic flowers
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit painters were paid less than workers who specialized in figures and landscapes, and most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. Details in gold were applied by specialists in gold painting and polishing at Meissen. In the late eighteenth century flower painters were even busier and consumer taste for floral decoration on domestic “china” has endured into our own time, but with the exception of a manufactory like Meissen most floral patterns are now applied by transfers and are not hand-painted directly onto the porcelain.
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content: The mark “K.H.K.” painted in overglaze purple refers to the Royal Court Kitchen (Königliche Hofküche) to which this plate one belonged.
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content: On Meissen’s relief decoration see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober.
label: Description
content: On graphic sources for Meissen porcelain see Möller, K. A., “Meissen Pieces Based on Graphic Originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.85-93; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.
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 Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 382-383.
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: CE.63.247
label: accession number
content: 250446
label: catalog number
content: 63.247
label: collector/donor number
content: 955
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate, soup
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: European flowers (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 1/2 in; 24.13 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 3/4 in x 9 9/16 in; 4.445 cm x 24.28875 cm