Meissen cup and saucer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1745
label: date made
content: 1745
label: date made
content: 1745?
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen cup and saucer
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Cup: H.2¾" 7cm; Saucer: L. 5½" 14cm, W. 4¾" 12.1cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1745
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: 1983.0565.47a,b
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 40 a,b
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; “3” impressed on saucer; “44” in purple on cup.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
label: Description
content: This cup and saucer 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 cup and saucer of quatrefoil shape have Watteau scenes painted in overglaze enamels on white panels alternating with German flowers (deutsche Blumen) painted on panels with a sea-green ground. Figures of couples in landscapes decorate the saucer, and on the cup they represent characters from the French adaptation of the Italian Comedy that was highly popular at the Paris city fairs.
label: Description
content: In the work of French artist Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) we see the development of the fêtes galantes based on the outdoor entertainments in private and public pleasure parks that represent youthful elite society removed from the conventions of court protocol. Watteau’s works depicted conversational, theatrical, and amorous encounters set in idealized pastoral surroundings where the fleeting nature of temporal pleasures hangs over the delicately poised gatherings, and they struck a chord with living protagonists.
label: Description
content: In the early 1740s the manufactory began to acquire a collection of copperplate engravings on which the Meissen painters based their “Watteauszenen” (Watteau scenes), and they became so much in demand that eleven painters were appointed to specialize in work based on these sources.
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, with staffage (figures and animals) and Watteau scenes 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.
label: Description
content: The gold ornament on the cup and saucer was the work of another specialist in the manufactory’s painting division.
label: Description
content: This type of cup and saucer with similar decorative motifs is associated with the porcelain painter Helena Wolfsohn, who had a studio in Dresden from 1843-1878 next to her store where she sold porcelain, glass, ivories, and fans, among other small luxury articles. The studio took in blanks or seconds (imperfect wares rejected by porcelain manufactories) and decorated them in the style of eighteenth-century products using the mark D under a crown to identify the work with the city of Dresden – there were many other porcelain painters operating in Dresden at the time and marks can be confusing. It is not difficult, however, to distinguish Wolfsohn’s enamel painting from the eighteenth-century originals.
label: Description
content: On Antoine Watteau see Thomas Crow, 1985, Painters and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Paris, chapter II, ‘Fêtes Galantes and Fêtes Publiques’, pp. 55-75. See also Sheriff, M. D., (ed.) 2006, Antoine Watteau: Perspectives on the Artist and the Culture of His Time.
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. 342-343.
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: 1983.0565.47ab
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.47ab
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: collector/donor number
content: 40
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cup
label: Object Name
content: saucer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: purple (cup color)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: Watteau scenes and German flowers (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: cup: 2 3/4 in; 6.985 cm
label: Measurements
content: saucer: 4 3/4 in x 5 1/2 in; 12.065 cm x 13.97 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall cup: 2 3/4 in x 3 13/16 in x 2 9/16 in; 6.985 cm x 9.68375 cm x 6.50875 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall saucer: 1 1/4 in x 5 7/16 in x 4 3/4 in; 3.175 cm x 13.81125 cm x 12.065 cm