Meissen plate
date: label: date made
content: ca 1730-1735
label: date made
content: 1730-1735
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen plate (Coronation service)
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: D. 8¾" 22.3cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Plate
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1733-1734
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing1983.0565.42
label: Description
content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.42
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1514
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “N=147/W” engraved (Johanneum mark).
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1966.
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 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: The service to which this plate belongs, known since the nineteenth century as the Coronation Service, was probably commissioned soon after the death in 1733 of Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II, in anticipation of his son’s succession and coronation in Krakow, Poland, the following year. The coat of arms represents the union of Saxony, Poland and Lithuania and the complete service may have formed a display or ‘buffet’ in the manner of gold or silver plate at the coronation of Augustus III at Wawel Castle in Krakow in 1734, especially as some of the dishes made were unusually large. On such an important royal occasion the new king and his guests would eat from a silver service rather than porcelain.
label: Description
content: Surrounding the coat of arms framed by a cartouche in Böttger luster and gold surmounted by a royal crown are scattered enamel painted Kakiemon flowers and rice-sheaves. An elaborate border of lozenges, leaf and strap work (Laub und Bandelwerk) painted in gold surrounds the rim of the plate which has no foot ring on the underside, instead the center is sunken in the manner of Chinese plates of the eighteenth century and other plates from this service have the same atypical form. Recorded in the 1779 inventory in Dresden the service numbered 77 pieces in total of which 37 were plates.
label: Description
content: For more examples of this service see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 96-97; 277-278; Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collection from the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, p. 459.
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 286-287.
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: 1983.0565.42
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.42
label: collector/donor number
content: 1514
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: armorial (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 3/4 in; 22.225 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/8 in x 8 25/32 in; 2.8575 cm x 22.3139 cm