Meissen cup and saucer (part of a service)
date: label: date made
content: ca 1745-1760
label: date made
content: 1745-1760
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen: Part of a tea service
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Coffeepot: H.7" 17.8cm; Teapot: 4⅜" 11.1cm; Cups H. 2" 5.1cm; Saucers: D. 5¾" 14.6cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Tea service
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1745-1760
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
label: Description
content: 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: 1983.0565.52a,b; 53a,b; 54AB
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 147a,b; 148a,b;149AB
label: Description
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; Maltese cross impressed on coffeepot; “53” impressed on saucers.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1943.
label: Description
content: These pieces from a tea service are in 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: Augustus III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (reg. 1733-1763), ordered a large service for Tsarina Elizabeth of Russia (reg. 1741-1761) on the occasion of the marriage of her nephew Karl Peter Ulrich Duke of Holstein-Gottorf (later Tsar Peter III, reg. 1761-1762) to Princess Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (laterTsarina Catherine II, reg. 1762-1796). The service was one of the early diplomatic gifts produced at Meissen on a large scale, and included a tea and coffee service in the 400 items sent to Russia in 1745.
label: Description
content: Unpainted sections on this service are decorated with the “raised flowers” (erhabene Blumen) in relief; a pattern modeled for a service in 1741and ordered two or three years later by the Berlin merchant, art dealer, and porcelain entrepreneur Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky (1710-1775). The enamel painted sections contain the double-headed imperial eagle with St. George on the pectoral shield, which is one of the emblems on the chain of the Imperial Order of St. Andrew First Called, and the cross of St Andrew can be seen on the saucers. The Order of St. Andrew was founded in 1698 by Tsar Peter I the Great. The naturalistic German flowers are painted in overglaze enamel in a style that followed the German woodcut flowers (Holzschnittblumen) that appear on the service for the Tsarina, indicating that these pieces were a later addition to the service, or made at a later date for the Russian market. The gold border decorating the rims was the work of a specialist gold painter.
label: Description
content: In the eighteenth century tea, coffee, and chocolate was served in the private apartments of aristocratic women, usually in the company of other women, but also with male admirers and intimates present. In affluent middle-class households tea and coffee drinking was often the occasion for an informal family gathering. Coffee houses were exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
label: Description
content: On the service for Tsarina Elizabeth see Lydia Liackhova, chapter 4 “In a Porcelain Mirror: Reflections of Russia from Peter I to Empress Elizabeth” in Cassidy-Geiger, M., 2008, Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts 1710-63; Ulrich Pietsch “Famous Eighteenth-Century Meissen Dinner Services” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.101-102.
label: Description
content: On tea and coffee drinking see see Ukers, W. H., 1922, All About Coffee, and 1935, All About Tea; on the practice of drinking tea, coffee, and chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; See also Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug. On the coffee house see Ellis, M. 2011, The Coffee House: A Cultural History.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 290-291.
label: Location
content: Currently on loan
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: 1983.0565.54Bab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.54Bab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 149b
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cup
label: Object Name
content: saucer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamel and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: floral painting and relief modeling (overall style)
label: Physical Description
content: russian imperial eagle and st. andrew's cross (overall description of decoration)
label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: cup: 2 in; 5.08 cm
label: Measurements
content: saucer: 5 3/4 in; 14.605 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall cup: 2 in x 4 3/8 in x 3 5/8 in; 5.08 cm x 11.1125 cm x 9.2075 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall saucer: 1 1/16 in x 5 3/4 in; 2.69875 cm x 14.605 cm