Meissen figure group
date: label: date made
content: ca 1750-1760
label: date made
content: 1750-1760
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen figure group of cupids by a column
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: 8¾" 22.3 cm.
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Figure group
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1750-1760
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: 73.179 a,b
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 508
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 on the larger section.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1944.
label: Description
content: This figure group 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: The three cupids honor a personage crowned with a laurel wreath represented in a medallion on the column. One of the cupids, dressed in the military attire of ancient Rome, suggests that the person honored is a military figure. Laurel wreaths, made from the broadleaf evergreen bay tree, were placed on the heads of victors in the Olympic Games of ancient Greece. Poets were also honored with this emblem, and still are in a figurative sense when appointed “poet laureate.” Military commanders and leaders of empire like the Caesars of Rome were often portrayed with a laurel wreath encircling their heads on coins, and following the classical style it was common to use the emblem in representations of eighteenth-century rulers, military leaders, and poets, especially after their death.
label: Description
content: This group has two parts that combine to make the whole; the seated cupid rests on the smaller section. It is possible that the group was made from two unrelated models.
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 group is painted in overglaze enamel colors and gold, although the modeling on the base of the larger section is not gilded to match the smaller piece.
label: Description
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: 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
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: CE.73.179ab
label: catalog number
content: 73.179ab
label: accession number
content: 308538
label: collector/donor number
content: 508
objectType: label: Object Name
content: figurine, group
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: rococo figure group. (overall style)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 8 3/4 in; 22.225 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall large section: 8 13/16 in x 8 in x 4 1/2 in; 22.38375 cm x 20.32 cm x 11.43 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall small section: 5 3/4 in x 6 3/16 in x 3 1/2 in; 14.605 cm x 15.71625 cm x 8.89 cm