Meissen miniature vase
date: label: date made
content: ca 1725-1735
label: date made
content: 1725-1735
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen miniature vase
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: H. 31/16 ; 7.8cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Miniature vase
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1723-1735
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: Art
label: Description
content: Domestic Furnishing
label: Description
content: Industry and Manufacture
label: Description
content: CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
label: Description
content: ID NUMBER: 1983.0565.29
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 178
label: Description
content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: None
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Gift from Emily Syz, 1942.
label: Description
content: This miniature vase 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 vase has a gourd-like shape painted with stylized orchids based on Imari designs. Delicately painted and punctuated with a band of abstract pattern in iron-red on the shoulder a miniature vase like this was most likely seen on the elaborately decorated dessert tables at court banquets or in a porcelain room as part of a schematic decoration, and may have been one of a series. Generally identified as Indian flowers these designs began to appear on Meissen porcelain in the mid-1720s when Johann Gregor Höroldt introduced brilliant new enamel colors to the manufactory’s painting division. Stylized representations of peonies, chrysanthemums, lotus plants, pomegranate fruits, and prunus blossoms can be recognized alongside more fanciful flowers. On larger Meissen vessels the Indian flowers are often bold and rich in color, but clearly more restrained when seen on smaller objects like this miniature vase, which has characteristics of both the Imari and Kakiemon styles.
label: Description
content: The term “Indian” described in general the exotic goods shipped to Europe from the the Indian subcontinent and the Far East during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Meissen painters under Johann Gregor Höroldt’s direction studied the Chinese and Japanese floral motifs on porcelain in the Dresden collections held at the Japanese palace, copying and adapting their designs from the originals to suit European taste.
label: Description
content: On the use of the Dresden collections for Meissen designs see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, p.24.
label: Description
content: On Imari and Kakiemon-style porcelains see Takeshi Nagataki, 2003, Classic Japanese Porcelain: Imari and Kakiemon
label: Description
content: Jefferson Miller II, J., Rückert, R., Syz, H., 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 176-177.
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: 1983.0565.29
label: accession number
content: 1983.0565
label: catalog number
content: 1983.0565.29
label: collector/donor number
content: 178
objectType: label: Object Name
content: vase, miniature
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: Indian flowers (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/16 in; 7.77875 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 2 7/8 in x 1 1/2 in; 7.3025 cm x 3.81 cm