Meissen 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 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. 10" 25.4cm
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content: OBJECT NAME: Plate
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content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
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content: DATE MADE: 1740
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content: SUBJECT: Art
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content: Domestic Furnishing
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content: Industry and Manufacturing
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content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
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content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.25
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 623
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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 in underglaze blue; “/” incised; “67” impressed.
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content: PURCHASED FROM: H. Bachrach, London, England, 1947.
label: Description
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: The plate, modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler, has a petal-shaped edge with a brown rim line and floral sprays painted in the Japanese Kakiemon style. In the center of the plate a butterfly rests on a flowering branch in a pattern influenced by Chinese famille verte onglaze and underglaze enamel painting of the K’ang Hsi period (1662-1722); famille verte refers to the group of Chinese porcelains with a color palette dominated by translucent emerald green enamel pigments. Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1670-1733), collected a large amount of famille verte porcelain from China, and another Meissen pattern, the “hawk” (see ID# 1983.0565.33), was based also on this family of Chinese porcelains.
label: Description
content: The onglaze enamel painted design on the plate is an example of the Meissen Manufactory’s use of motifs with both Japanese and Chinese origins, and the pattern was intitially in production for the Parisian dealer Rodolphe Lemaire in 1730. Following exposure of Lemaire’s and Count Hoym’s fraudulent activities the pattern was used on services made for the Saxon court; an inventory of the Hubertusburg Royal Saxon Hunting Lodge lists a large service “painted with a butterfly and with a wavy rim.” The lodge was used by Augustus III, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland (1696-1763) not just for hunting in the surrounding forests, but also for lavish court banquets and entertainment. A tureen with the same pattern and with handles modeled in the shape of wild boar heads can be seen in the digital collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O333593/tureen-meissen-porcelain-factory/
label: Description
content: On the Hoym-Lemaire affair see Weber, J., 2013, Meissener Porzellane mit Dekoren nach ostasiatischen Vorbildern: Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim, Band I, and for more details and further examples of this pattern see Band II, S. 344-356.
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content: On Chinese famille verte see Valenstein S.G., 1975 (1989) A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, pp.227-236.
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content: For three Meissen pieces with the same pattern see Pietsch, U., 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: the Wark Collectionfrom the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 252-253.
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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: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 168-169.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Saxony, Meissen
topic: label: Subject
content: Manufacturing
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
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1983.0565.25
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.25
label: collector/donor number
content: 623
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: Kakiemon/Chinese famille verte (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 in; 25.4 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 5/8 in x 10 1/8 in; 4.1275 cm x 25.7175 cm