Meissen covered pot and stand
date: label: date made
content: 1730-1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen covered pot and stand
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Pot: H 4½" 11.4cm; Stand: D. 6¾" 17.2cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Pot and stand
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: ca. 1730-1735
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: 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: 1981.0702.3 Aab, Bab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 192
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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: MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
label: Description
content: This pot and stand 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 covered pot with three lion’s feet carry onglaze enamel subjects of harbor and waterside scenes painted in purple. On the pot there is a continuous and busy Kauffahrtei scene with merchants engaged in business while laborers prepare cargo on the quayside. The cover has a waterside landscape on one side and two men preparing cargo on the other. On the stand a loading quay reaches out over a river with a harbor in the distance.
label: Description
content: Waterways formed a major conduit for trade in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, and artists produced a large number of paintings and prints that featured everyday life alongside rivers, canals and harbors. The harbor scenes of the seventeenth century represented to the Dutch their success in trade from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and the Far East at a time when the Republic was the most prosperous seafaring nation in Europe. The popularity of these subjects extended into the eighteenth century, and introduced at Meissen in the 1720s they remained in the manufactory’s repertoire until the 1750s. The enduring popularity of waterside and landscape subjects, especially the tranquil rural scenes depicted in prints by artists like Jan van de Velde, held particular appeal for Europeans confined to city and court. Long before Meissen began production Dutch artists realized the potential for a market in prints that led viewers into pleasant places real and imagined. In seventeenth-century Amsterdam there was a flourishing publishing industry to support the production of illustrated books and print series for buyers to view at their leisure. Printed images enriched people’s lives and a series of prints might take the viewer on a journey, real or imaginary. Prints performed a role in European visual culture later extended by photography and film, and they provided artisans and artists with images, motifs, and patterns applied in many branches of the applied arts.
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (figures and animals) were paid more than those who painted flowers, fruits and underglaze blue patterns. Most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage or salary.
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content: The pot was used to serve hot broth or bouillon, often to a sick person in the household.
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content: On seventeenth-century Dutch art see Gibson, W.S., (2000) Pleasant Places: the rustic landscape from Bruegel to Ruisdael; Goddard, S.H., (1984) Sets and Series: prints from the Low Countries, exhibition catalog, Yale University Art Gallery.
label: Description
content: On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 112-113.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Saxony, Meissen
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: 1981.0702.03abc
label: catalog number
content: 1981.0702.03abc
label: accession number
content: 1981.0702
label: collector/donor number
content: 192abc
objectType: label: Object Name
content: stand
label: Object Name
content: pot
label: Object Name
content: Jar
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, purple (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (cover color)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (stand color)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: purple monochrome and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: harbor scenes (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall pot and cover: 4 5/8 in x 5 1/8 in x 4 in; 11.7475 cm x 13.0175 cm x 10.16 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall stand: 1 1/4 in x 6 3/4 in; 3.175 cm x 17.145 cm