Meissen leaf dish: one of a pair (Hausmaler)
date: label: date made
content: ca 1715-1720
label: date made
content: 1715-1720
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen: Pair of small leaf dishes (Hausmaler)
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content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
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content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
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content: MEASUREMENTS: L. 3¾" 9.5 cm. H. 1⅝" 4.2 cm.
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content: OBJECT NAME: Leaf dishes
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1715-1720
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
label: Description
content: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
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content: ID NUMBER: 75.193 A,B
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content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 781 A,B
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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: Hans E. Backer, London, England, 1948.
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content: These leaf dishes are 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 Germany, 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 leaf dishes were made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of outmoded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or even imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
label: Description
content: The two leaf dishes made at the Meissen manufactory imitate Chinese brush washers made in milky white blanc de chine fired in the Dehua kilns in Fujian Province. The dishes were luxury items for the use of scholars who practiced calligraphy. In China the dishes were not decorated except for a floral sprig on the base of the dish that served as a stabilizer. These Meissen copies also have sprigs on the bases with the typical twig-shaped handle. It was probably the Hausmaler Ignaz Preissler of Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) who painted the two dishes with exceptionally fine miniature seascapes and harbor scenes. Preissler typically used the technique of painting black transparent enamel (Schwarzlot) onto the surface of the porcelain and then scratched the image through the color. The technique originated in stained glass making, and Preissler followed the tradition established in the German city of Nuremberg, an important center for the use of this technique on glass.
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content: The source for the seascapes and harbor scenes are likely to be the many prints in circulation in artisan workshops after the paintings of Dutch artists of the mid-to-late 1600s that retained their popularity well into the eighteenth century.
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content: On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46.
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content: On the work of Ignaz Preissler see Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1989, “’ Repraesentatio Belli, ob successionem in Regno Hispanico...’: A Tea Service and Garniture by the Schwarzlot Decorator Ignaz Preissler” Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 24, pp. 239-254.
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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.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 528-529.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Saxony, Meissen
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.75.193B
label: catalog number
content: 75.193B
label: collector/donor number
content: 781B
label: accession number
content: 319073
objectType: label: Object Name
content: dish, leaf
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: monochrome, black (overall surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 5/8 in x 3 3/4 in; 4.1275 cm x 9.525 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 3/4 in x 4 in x 3 in; 4.445 cm x 10.16 cm x 7.62 cm