Meissen tea caddy
date: label: date made
content: 1740-1750
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen tea caddy
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 4¼" 10.8cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Tea caddy
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1740-1750
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:
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 1987.0896.17
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1164
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: None
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: The Art Exchange, New York, 1961.
label: Description
content: This tea caddy 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: This rectangular tea caddy appears very similar to a milk pot (ID number 71.204) but the cartouches, with their elaborate foliage scrolls and drapery are not identical and the caddy belongs to another service. The cartouches frame waterside scenes on the front and back with similar subjects on the sides all painted in overglaze purple enamel with some gold highlights. Insects are depicted on the shoulders of the caddy, but the cover is missing.
label: Description
content: Sources for enamel painted harbor scenes and landscapes came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Italian, Dutch, and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the mid - 1720s until the 1750s. The Meissen manufactory accumulated folios of prints, about six to twelve in a set, as well as illustrated books and individual prints after the work of many European artists, especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d. 1640).
label: Description
content: The enduring popularity of landscape and waterside 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 fulfilling court duties. 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. The production of luxury goods in the eighteenth century opened up further opportunities for adapting these subjects onto the surfaces two and three-dimensional objects.
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. Ornamental gold painting was the work of another specialist in the painting division.
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.
label: Description
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. 314-315.
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
label: See more items in
content: The Hans C. Syz Collection
label: See more items in
content: Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection
label: See more items in
content: Art
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1987.0896.17ab
label: catalog number
content: 1987.0896.17ab
label: accession number
content: 1987.0896
label: collector/donor number
content: 1164
objectType: label: Object Name
content: caddy, tea
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: painted in purple enamel and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: waterside scenes (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 1/4 in; 10.795 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall tea caddy: 3 15/16 in x 2 7/8 in x 2 in; 10.00125 cm x 7.3025 cm x 5.08 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall cover: 1 1/4 in x 1 5/16 in; 3.175 cm x 3.33375 cm