Meissen Böttger porcelain rinsing bowl (Hausmaler)
date: label: date made
content: 1715-1720
label: date made
content: ca 1715-1720
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen rinsing bowl (Hausmaler)
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 3¼" 8.3cm; D. 6⅞" 17.5cm
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content: OBJECT NAME: Bowl
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1715-1720
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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
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content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.66
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 661
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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: None
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1947.
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content: This rinsing bowl 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 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: The bowl was made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
label: Description
content: Hunting scenes painted in gold formed another genre alongside the chinoiseries in Hausmaler work. The rinsing bowl, designed to collect spent tea leaves and receive a rinse of water before a fresh cup filled a drinker’s tea bowl, has a fast moving hunting scene running around the exterior surface, the so-called “parforce” in which quarry was driven towards the hunters. Scrollwork consoles support the figures, and scrollwork borders decorate the interior rim of the bowl. It was painted in Augsburg, probably by Abraham Seuter (1689-1747), after 1722.
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content: On the Augsburg Hausmaler Abraham Seuter see Ducret, S., 1971, Meissner Porzellan bemalt in Augsburg, 1718 bis um 1750, Band 1 Goldmalereien und bunte Chinoiserien.
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content: On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 498-499.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
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: Hans C. Syz Collection
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0565.66
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.66
label: collector/donor number
content: 661
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bowl
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste Boettger porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: gold painted over glazed porcelain (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: gilt (overall production method/technique)
label: Physical Description
content: chinoiserie (joint piece style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/4 in x 6 7/8 in; 8.255 cm x 17.4625 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 3/16 in x 6 13/16 in; 8.09625 cm x 17.30375 cm