Meissen cup and saucer
date: label: date made
content: ca 1730-1740
label: date made
content: 1730-1740
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. 1⅞" 4.8cm; Saucer L. 5⅜" 13.7cm, W. 4⅞" 12.4cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Cup and saucer
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: ca. 1730-1740
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: 1987.0896.09ab
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 435ab
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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; “22” in gold (gold painter’s number).
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content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
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 quatrefoil shaped cup and saucer has a basket weave design on the exteriors with flowers in relief (erhabene Blumen) enclosed in reserves. On the interiors elaborate scrollwork in purple, iron-red and gold frame waterside subjects in polychrome onglaze enamels. The delicate scrollwork design belongs to the earlier baroque style at Meissen. On the interior of the cup two men in a small boat sail at the entrance to a harbor with buildings in view behind them. On the saucer a man rides a white horse while leading another brown horse beside him. In the background is a coastal landscape with a harbor in the distance.
label: Description
content: Sources for enamel painted subjects like these ones came from the vast number of prints after paintings by Dutch and Flemish masters of the seventeenth century that formed a major part of Meissen’s output from the early 1720s until the 1750s. The Meissen manufactory accumulated folios of prints, about six to twelve in a set, as well as illustrated books and individual prints after the work of many European artists, especially the work of Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), Jan van de Velde (1593-1641), and Johann Wilhelm Baur (d.1640). Many of these landscape and waterside scenes were imaginary, and paintings of existing locations were often altered by the artist. Meissen painters were also encouraged to use their imagination in enamel painting using the prints as a guide. These subjects can be seen on items like fans, enameled copper objects, and painted interiors as well as on porcelain and faience. Their appeal lay in the pleasure of contemplating the tranquility and beauty of the landscape, or the fascination with trade represented in the harbor scenes. Printed images enriched people’s lives and a series of prints might take the viewer on a journey, real or imaginary. Prints performed a role in European visual culture later extended by photography and film, and they provided artisans and artists with images, motifs, and patterns applied in many branches of the applied arts.
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Enamel painters specializing in landscapes, harbor, and river scenes with staffage (figures and animals) 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 or salary. Decorative scrollwork was the responsibility of another painter specializing in this form of decoration.
label: Description
content: On Meissen sources for enamel painted subjects see Möller, K.A. “ ‘…fine copper pieces for the factory…’ Meissen Pieces Based on Graphic Originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.84-93; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.
label: Description
content: On sets of prints see Goddard, S. H., 1984, Sets and Series: Prints from the Low Countries.
label: Description
content: Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meissener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 298-299.
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: Industry & Manufacturing
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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: 1987.0896.09ab
label: catalog number
content: 1987.0896.09ab
label: accession number
content: 1987.0896
label: collector/donor number
content: 435ab
objectType: label: Object Name
content: cup
label: Object Name
content: saucer
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue (cup color)
label: Physical Description
content: blue (saucer color)
label: Physical Description
content: gold (cup color)
label: Physical Description
content: gold (saucer color)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome (component surface decoration color name)
label: Physical Description
content: landscapes (joint piece description of decoration)
label: Physical Description
content: landscapes (overall description of decoration)
label: Physical Description
content: ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (cup material)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: rural landscape and harbor scenes (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: cup: 1 7/8 in; 4.7625 cm
label: Measurements
content: saucer: 5 3/8 in x 4 7/8 in; 13.6525 cm x 12.3825 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall cup: 2 in x 4 1/4 in x 3 1/8 in; 5.08 cm x 10.795 cm x 7.9375 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall saucer: 1 1/8 in x 5 1/2 in x 4 7/8 in; 2.8575 cm x 13.97 cm x 12.3825 cm