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Catalog Data

Maker:
Meissen Manufactory  Search this
Physical Description:
painted in underglaze cobalt blue and onglaze gold (overall color)
ceramic; hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
blue (overall color)
monochrome, blue (overall surface decoration color name)
kakiemon (joint piece style)
Measurements:
overall: 3 3/8 in x 6 1/4 in; 8.5725 cm x 15.875 cm
Object Name:
bowl
Date made:
1740-1750
Description:
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue.
PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1949.
This rinsing bowl 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 collector and 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.
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.
Early in Meissen’s history Johann Friedrich Böttger’s team searched for success in underglaze blue painting in imitation of the Chinese and Japanese prototypes in the Dresden collections. Böttger’s porcelain, however, was fired at a temperature higher than Chinese porcelain or German stoneware. As in China, the underglaze blue pigment was painted on the clay surface before firing, but when glazed and fired the cobalt sank into the porcelain body and ran into the glaze instead of maintaining a clear image like the Chinese originals. The Elector of Saxony and King of Poland Augustus II was not satisfied with the inferior product. Success in underglaze blue painting eluded Böttger’s team until Johann Gregor Höroldt (1696-1775) appropriated a workable formula developed by the metallurgist David Köhler (1673-1723). Success required adjustment to the porcelain paste by replacing the alabaster flux with feldspar and adding a percentage of porcelain clay (kaolin) to the cobalt pigment. Underglaze blue painting became a reliable and substantial part of the manufactory’s output in the 1730s.
The “rock and bird” pattern seen on this bowl was adapted by the Meissen manufactory from Japanese porcelain models made in Arita. Japanese potters imitated Chinese designs and trade in porcelain between the two countries was extensive before the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. Several European porcelain manufactories imitated Meissen’s imitation of the Japanese prototype of a flying bird and flowering tree beside a rock. The double loops circling the interior rim of the bowl are common to many of the objects with the “rock and bird” pattern. The pattern is highlighted by the addition of gold.
The bowl was part of a tea service and its function was to collect the remains of tea in a tea bowl or cup as it was rinsed before replenishing.
Underglaze blue painting requires skills similar to a watercolor artist. There are no second chances, and once the pigment touches the clay or biscuit-fired surface it cannot be eradicated easily. Many of Meissen’s underglaze blue designs were, and still are, “pounced” onto the surface of the vessel before painting. Pouncing is a long used technique in which finely powdered charcoal or graphite is allowed to fall through small holes pierced through the outlines of a paper design, thereby serving as a guide for the painter and maintaining a relative standard in the component parts of Meissen table services.
On underglaze blue painting at Meissen see Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp. 22-23.
J. Carswell, 1985, Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and its impact on the Western World.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 256-257.
Location:
Currently not on view
Subject:
Manufacturing  Search this
Credit Line:
Hans C. Syz Collection
ID Number:
1984.1140.27
Catalog number:
1984.1140.27
Accession number:
1984.1140
Collector/donor number:
835
See more items in:
Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
The Hans C. Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishings
Data Source:
National Museum of American History
GUID:
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a6-a970-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:nmah_1406434