Meissen coffee pot and cover
date: label: date made
content: ca 1735-1740
label: date made
content: 1735-1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen coffeepot and cover
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 8⅜" 21.3cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1735-1740
label: Description
content: SUBJECT:
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: 1983.0565.44ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1105
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; “a” in purple over the glaze on the base and inner cover (painter’s marks).
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: William H. Lautz, New York, 1960.
label: Description
content: This coffeepot and cover 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 coffeepot and cover based on silver prototypes have purple grounds and in the reserve on one side of the pot a rural cottage with a figure emerging from the door stands near a river bank; in the other reserve a well-dressed family watch as a man sails a small vessel on the river. On the cover are two harbor scenes. The handle has old metal repairs.
label: Description
content: Sources for enamel painted landscapes and river scenes came from the large number of prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century, and they formed a major part of Meissen’s decorative output from the early 1730s until the 1760s.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 city dwellers and for the nobility at 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, and for whom rural life represented a picturesque diversion. 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.
label: Description
content: The colored ground was applied using a brush lightly loaded with purple enamel color which was then flicked onto the surface of the glaze, possibly preprared with gum arabic for adhesion. The reserves were either masked out or the ground color was carefully wiped off after application.
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes and subjects with figures 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. On-glaze gold decoration was the work of specialist gold painters and polishers.
label: Description
content: On graphic sources for Meissen’s painters see Möller, K. A., “’…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on graphic originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 84-93, and on colored grounds pp. 267-274.
label: Description
content: On Dutch prints see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
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. 302-303.
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: 1983.0565.44ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.44ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 1105ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: coffeepot
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: purple (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: land andscape and river scenes with figures (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 3/8 in; 21.2725 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 3/8 in x 6 1/4 in x 4 1/2 in; 21.2725 cm x 15.875 cm x 11.43 cm