Meissen tea bowl and saucer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1735-1740
label: date made
content: 1735-1740
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen tea bowl and saucer
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: Tea bowl: H. 1⅝" 4.2cm; Saucer: D. 4⅝" 11.8cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Tea bowl and saucer
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: 1984.1140.32ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1135ab
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; three small circles impressed on cup, possibly the former Gottfried Seydel (or Seidel); two six-pointed stars incised on saucer attributable to the former Christian Meynert (Meinert).
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: The Art Exchange, New York, 1960.
label: Description
content: This tea bowl 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: Painted in the Japanese Imari style the tea bowl and saucer have panels of purple luster with a gold diaper brocade pattern and chrysanthemum emblem alternating with white panels featuring prunus trees in flower and field chrysanthemums. The chrysanthemum emblem with its sixteen petals resembles the Japanese Imperial seal still common to many decorative items produced in contemporary Japan. Encircling a larger chrysanthemum motif in the center of the saucer is an iron-red band with a floral and foliate design left in white, and the same band encircles the interior rim of the tea bowl.
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 trading base on the island of Dejima. 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.
label: Description
content: Original Japanese Imari collected by the European aristocracy was much admired for its opulent decorative style. The Saxon Elector and King of Poland, Augustus II, held examples in his porcelain collection at the Japanese Palace in Dresden, and the Meissen Manufactory produced designs that were very close imitations of the Japanese originals, or independent designs based on Japanese and Chinese prototypes. 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 manufactorie. Royal Crown Derby continues to produce a derivative pattern called Traditional Imari today.
label: Description
content: For a detailed account of the 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.See also Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon; Rotondo-McCord, L., 1997, Imari: Japanese Porcelain for European Palaces: The Freda and Ralph Lupin Collection; Goro Shimura, 2008, The Story of Imari: the Symbols and Mysteries of antique Japanese Porcelain.
label: Description
content: On Gottfried Seydel see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, p. 129; on Christian Meinert see p.121.
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 198-199.
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
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1984.1140.32ab
label: catalog number
content: 1984.1140.32ab
label: accession number
content: 1984.1140
label: collector/donor number
content: 1135ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: bowl, tea
label: Object Name
content: saucer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (saucer color)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (tea bowl color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (component surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: flowers (joint piece description of decoration)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (saucer material)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (tea bowl material)
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: bowl: 1 5/8 in; 4.1275 cm
label: Measurements
content: saucer: 4 5/8 in; 11.7475 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall tea bowl: 1 3/4 in x 2 7/8 in; 4.445 cm x 7.3025 cm
label: Measurements
content: overalls saucer: 1 1/8 in x 4 5/8 in; 2.8575 cm x 11.7475 cm