Meissen plate
date: label: date made
content: ca 1763-1774
label: date made
content: 1763-1774
name: label: maker
content: Meissen Manufactory
notes: label: Description
content: TITLE: Meissen plate
label: Description
content: MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
label: Description
content: PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
label: Description
content: MEASUREMENTS: D. 10¼" 26cm
label: Description
content: OBJECT NAME: Plate
label: Description
content: PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
label: Description
content: DATE MADE: 1763-1774
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: 1993.447.01
label: Description
content: COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 1
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content: ACCESSION NUMBER:
label: Description
content: (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
label: Description
content: MARKS: Crossed swords and dot in underglaze blue; “34” impressed.
label: Description
content: PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1941.
label: Description
content: This plate 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: Ripe fruits against a background of naturalistic flowers feature in this polychrome overglaze enamel painted plate with its petal-shaped edge, part of a dinner service to which the soup plate (ID number 1993.447.02) also belongs.
label: Description
content: The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit painters formed the largest section of specialist workers in the painting division following the Seven Years War (1756-1763); an indication of the popularity of these subjects for table services. Painters in this group were paid less than workers who specialized in figures and landscapes, and most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. The gold rim line was painted by a specialist in gold decoration.
label: Description
content: Meissen trained its painters through apprenticeship before the war, but in 1764 a drawing school was founded with a director, Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich (1712-1774), who was painter to the court and a member of the Dresden Academy of Art. It was state policy to steer Saxon manufactures towards the new style emerging in France, and in Meissen’s case an attempt to maintain a competitive edge against new porcelain manufactories, especially that of Sèvres near Paris.
label: Description
content: On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
label: Description
content: On the Meissen Manufactory following the Seven Years War see Anette Loesch “Meissen Porcelain from 1763-1815” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 34-51.
label: Description
content: Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 404-405.
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: 1993.0447.01
label: accession number
content: 1993.0447
label: catalog number
content: 1993.0447.01
label: collector/donor number
content: 1A
objectType: label: Object Name
content: plate
label: Object Type
content: plate
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: painted in polychrome enamels and gold (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: European fruits and flowers (overall style)
label: Physical Description
content: blue underglaze (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 10 1/4 in; 26.035 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1 1/2 in x 10 1/4 in; 3.81 cm x 26.035 cm