Meissen figure of a boy in costume
date: label: date made
content: ca 1765-1770
label: date made
content: 1765-1770
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure of a boy in costume
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 4¾" 12.1 cm.
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1765-1770
label: Description
content: SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
label: Description
content: 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: 1987.0896.31
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 131
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content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
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content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
label: Description
content: This figure 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 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: Several figures of children representing characters in the Italian Comedy appeared in 1765, some of them modeled by Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775)in the 1750s before the Seven Years War (1756-1763), then remodeled and repaired after the war by the new modeler from France, Michel Victor Acier(1736-1799), who joined Meissen in 1764. This figure represents the Italian Comedy character Scaramouche, although not in the black clothing traditionally worn by this rogue portrayed as an untrustworthy gentleman’s servant prone to get himself into trouble and extricating himself by landing someone entirely innocent in his predicament. In print sources Scaramouche frequently appears as a musician or a dancer, and the figure here is one of many child subjects that represent dancing.
label: Description
content: Many of the child figures are diminutive versions of adult subjects, especially gardeners, earlier modeled by Kaendler and again retouched and repaired by Acier in the 1760s. Child musicians, vintners and street traders (see the pastry seller 1993.447.03), children dressed in the Turkish style (see 1992.0427.16), children dancing (see 1992.0427.09), are common themes. Drawings by, and engravings after, the French painter François Boucher, were the models for many of the child figures, especially the pastoral subjects and flower girls.
label: Description
content: Meissen figures and figure groups are usually sculpted in special modeling clay and then cut carefully into separate pieces from which individual molds are made. Porcelain clay is then pressed into the molds and the whole figure or group reassembled to its original form, a process requiring great care and skill. The piece is then dried thoroughly before firing in the kiln. In the production of complex figure groups the work is arduous and requires the making of many molds from the original model.
label: Description
content: The figure is painted in overglaze enamel colors.
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content: On the modeling and molding process still practiced today at Meissen see Alfred Ziffer, “‘…skillfully made ready for moulding…’ The Work of Johann Joachim Kaendler” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgeoisie 1710-1815, pp.61-67.
label: Description
content: On the Italian Comedy figures see Meredith Chilton, 2001, Harlequin Unmasked: The Commedia dell’Arte and Porcelain Sculpture,.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 466-467.
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: 1987.0896.31
label: catalog number
content: 1987.0896.31
label: accession number
content: 1987.0896
label: collector/donor number
content: 131
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: figure (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 3/4 in; 12.065 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 4 13/16 in x 2 1/8 in x 2 1/2 in; 12.22375 cm x 5.3975 cm x 6.35 cm