Meissen octagonal plate
date: label: date made
content: ca 1740
label: date made
content: 1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen octagonal plate
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: D. 8¾" 22.3cm
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content: OBJECT NAME: Plate
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content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1740-1745
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content: SUBJECT: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 61.66
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1015
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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: Crossed swords and a “K” in a double circle, all in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Galerie Almas, Munich, Germany, 1957.
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content: This plate 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 octagonal plate from a dinner service has elaborate decoration in underglaze blue, onglaze enamel and gold in the Imari style after a Japanese prototype. A vase of chrysanthemums and peonies occupies the center encircled by a wide border containing stylized peonies, prunus blossoms, phoenixes or Japanese hō-ō birds, and kara-shishi lion dogs. Polychrome flowering twigs are painted on the underside of the plate.
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content: Lion dogs originated in Chinese Buddhism and were adopted in Japan as protective animals, often seen as sculptures of a male and female pair placed at the entrances to Buddhist and Shinto shrines, at the threshold to secular buildings, and in people’s homes. The lion is, of course, not native to Japan or China, and the significance of the animal as representative of wisdom and courage came from Buddhist India and Central Asia. The hybrid creature of lion and dog emerged from the faithful nature of Chinese lap dog breeds with their long ears and bushy tails, and the lion and dog were thus conflated in their protective role first in China and then in Korea and Japan. There is not much consistency in their appearance which has always been fluid in the imagination of Japanese artists and artisans.
label: Description
content: Japanese Imari wares came from kilns near the town of Arita in the north-western region of Kyushu, Japan’s southernmost island and were exported by the Dutch through the port of Imari from their base on the island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki. Decorated in the Aka-e-machi, the enameling center in Arita, Imari wares are generally distinguished from those made in the Kakiemon style by the darker palette of enamel colors and densely patterned surfaces, some of which are clearly derived from Japanese and South-East Asian textiles and known in Japan as brocade ware (nishiki-de), but there are considerable variations within this broad outline. Unlike the Kakiemon style a high proportion of Japanese Imari wares combined underglaze blue painting with overglaze enamel colors.
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content: Original Japanese Imari collected by the European aristocracy was much admired for its opulent decorative style. When no longer imported to Europe imitations of the Imari style gained wider popularity later in the eighteenth century, most notably in the products of the English Worcester and Derby porcelain manufactories, and Royal Crown Derby continues to produce a derivative pattern called Traditional Imari today.
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content: On the Japanese Imari style and its European imitators see Ayers, J., Impey, O., Mallet, J.V.G., 1990, Porcelain for Palaces: the fashion for Japan in Europe 1650-1750; Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection; Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon; Goro Shimura, 2008, The Story of Imari: the Symbols and Mysteries of antique Japanese Porcelain.
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content: See also Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band II, S. 110.
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content: On animal symbolism see K. M. Ball (1927 and 2004) Animal Motifs in Asian Art.
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content: On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
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content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 194-195.
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
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dr. Hans Syz
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.61.66
label: catalog number
content: 61.66
label: accession number
content: 240074
label: collector/donor number
content: 1015
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: Imari (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 3/4 in; 22.225 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/8 in x 8 25/32 in x 8 25/32 in; 2.8575 cm x 22.3139 cm x 22.3139 cm