Meissen figure group of Leda and the Swan
date: label: date made
content: ca 1750-1760
label: date made
content: 1750-1760
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure group of Leda and the swan
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 6½" 16.5 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure group
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1750-1760
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
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: 1992.0427.15
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 237
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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: MARK: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
label: Description
content: This figure group 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 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: Leda was Queen of Sparta, the wife of King Tyndareus. The god Zeus, inclined to act on his passions for mortal women, took the form of a swan and seduced Leda on the same night that she conceived two children by her mortal husband Tyndareus. By Zeus, the progeny of one egg were the twins Castor and Polydeuces, or in another version of the legend, Polydeuces and Helen, while by Tyndareus, Leda bore Castor and Clytemnestra. Her twin sons became known as the Dioskouri and they joined the Argonauts led by Jason. Represented in the night sky they are the stars Castor and Pollux. Helen and Clytemnestra were the wives of heroes in the Trojan War, Menelaus and Agamemnon.
label: Description
content: The subject of Leda and the swan has the potential for erotic depiction in both the visual and literary arts, but in the figure group modeled by Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749) the erotic potential is implied lightly. Erotic and pornographic subjects in porcelain objects tend to appear on the underside of snuff box lids, in small objects that could be concealed easily in a pocket, or the interior of a bourdelou used only in private apartments.
label: Description
content: Johann Friedrich Eberlein (1696-1749) modeled this group of Leda placing a flower wreath around the swan’s neck while a putto watches from her side with sly curiosity.
label: Description
content: Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then carefully cut into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.
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content: The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold.
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content: On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.
label: Description
content: On Leda see Grafton, A., Most, G.W., Settis, S., eds. 2010, The Classical Tradition, p. 519.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 436-437.
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
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1992.0427.15
label: accession number
content: 1992.0427
label: catalog number
content: 1992.0427.15
label: collector/donor number
content: 237
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine, group
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: figure group (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 1/2 in; 16.51 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 6 5/16 in x 5 13/16 in x 4 1/4 in; 16.03375 cm x 14.76375 cm x 10.795 cm