Meissen figure group of a centaur with a cupid
date: label: date made
content: ca 1755-1760
label: date made
content: 1755-1760
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure group of a centaur with a cupid
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 8⅝" 22 cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure group
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1755-1760
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: 75.191
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 517
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content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
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content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARK: None
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
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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: Modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) in 1756, the subject of a centaur teased by Cupid probably originated in a bronze sculpture of the 2nd century BCE. A marble copy recorded in the Villa Borghese in Rome in 1638 and purchased in 1807 by Napolean Bonaparte is now in the Louvre in Paris. François Perrier (1590-1650) engraved the subject in 1638 for his collection of prints representing the finest examples of Roman statuary, and numerous reduced versions were subsequently made in bronze, wood, plaster and terracotta. The centaur stands in the original version with cupid on his back, but here the centaur is about to rise from the ground in an attempt to rid himself of the mischievous cupid tugging at his hair. 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.
label: Description
content: The group is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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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 the Centaur with Cupid see Haskell, A., Penny, N., 1981, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, p.179. On the centaur see Grafton, A., Most, G.W., Settis, S., eds. 2010, The Classical Tradition, p. 187.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection, pp. 434-435.
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.75.191
label: catalog number
content: 75.191
label: accession number
content: 319073
label: collector/donor number
content: 517
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine, group
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 (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 5/8 in; 21.9075 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 9/16 in x 9 in x 3 3/4 in; 21.74875 cm x 22.86 cm x 9.525 cm