Meissen lemon basket (from a plat de ménage)
date: label: date made
content: c.1737-1740
label: date made
content: 19th century
label: date made
content: 1737-1740
label: date made
content: 91737-1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen lemon basket from a Plat de Ménage
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 10¾" 27.3cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Lemon basket
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1735-1740
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: 63.263
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 53
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content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
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content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
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content: MARKS: None
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
label: Description
content: This lemon basket 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 lemon basket was part of a ‘plat de ménage’ that served as a centerpiece on the dining or banqueting table, also known as an ‘Epargne’ from the French épargner’ meaning to serve and often made in silver or silver gilt. The ‘plat de ménage’ held cruet sets containing various condiments like oil and vinegar, mustard, salt, spices, and sugar for guests to season their food during service in the French style of three main savory courses before the often spectacular dessert. Lemon baskets stood higher than the cruets, supported by figures like the two wrestling putti seen here were designed to attract the eye to the fruit piled within the basket or ‘shell.’ Lemons were a luxury in the eighteenth century and were meant to impress the diners. Imported from the Mediterranean countries or grown further north in conservatories and greenhouses, they were an important culinary item and flavoring for fish, meat and salads then as they are today.
label: Description
content: The ‘plat de ménage’ gave Meissen modelers great scope for creating impressive centerpieces for major table services, but this lemon basket belongs to a less imposing model that was, nevertheless, in regular production through several versions in or even before 1735, and which continued into the early twentieth century with many variations. In August of 1735 Johann Joachim Kaendler recorded renewing and making higher a lemon ‘shell’ with two children standing on a rock (Die Arbeitsberichte des Meissener Porzellanmodelleurs Johann Joachim Kaendler 1706-1775, 2002, p.33).
label: Description
content: This lemon basket has a quatrefoil shape with a band of relief-molded scrolls and strapwork on its exterior. The interior has East Asian flora painted in onglaze enamel with a bird perched on a stem. The coat of arms may belong to minor gentry or an entrepreneurial family with the name of Hopfner or Höpfner indicated by the entwined vines suggestive of hops.
label: Description
content: Not many Meissen pieces from a table service with this pattern exist: a sugar box can be seen online at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, # C92&A-1929; see also Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Pozellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, p. 465.
label: Description
content: On the ‘plat de ménage’ see Katherina Hantschmann, “The ‘Plat de Ménage’: The Centrepiece on the Banqueting Table” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 106-119
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 288-289.
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
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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.63.263
label: catalog number
content: 63.263
label: accession number
content: 250446
label: collector/donor number
content: 53
objectType: label: Object Name
content: compote
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall decoration fragment: 5/16 in x 1/4 in x 1/8 in; .8255 cm x .635 cm x .3175 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall compote: 11 1/4 in x 8 in x 6 1/4 in; 28.575 cm x 20.32 cm x 15.875 cm