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Catalog Data

Maker:
Meissen Manufactory  Search this
Physical Description:
blue (overall color)
polychrome (overall surface decoration color name)
ceramic, porcelain, hard-paste (overall material)
Measurements:
overall: 9 3/8 in; 23.8125 cm
overall: 1 5/16 in x 9 7/16 in; 3.33375 cm x 23.97125 cm
Object Name:
plate
Object Type:
plate
Place made:
Germany: Saxony, Meissen
Date made:
mid 18th century
1760
Description:
TITLE: Meissen: Pair of Plates
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: D. 9⅞" 25.1cm
OBJECT NAME: Plates
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1760
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 63.244. AB
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 378 AB
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: Crossed swords in underglaze blue; “22” impressed.
PURCHASED FROM: Arthur S. Vernay, New York, 1943.
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 psychoanalysis 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.
The plate has overglaze enamel painting of a floral spray and scattered flowers in the naturalistic style. European flowers began to appear on Meissen porcelain in about 1740 as the demand for Far Eastern patterns became less dominant and more high quality printed sources became available in conjunction with growing interest in the scientific study of flora and fauna. For the earlier style of German flowers (deutsche Blumen) Meissen painters referred to Johann Wilhelm Weinmann’s publication, the Phytantoza Iconographia (Nuremberg 1737-1745), in which many of the plates were engraved after drawings by the outstanding botanical illustrator Georg Dionys Ehret (1708-1770). The more formally correct German flowers were superseded by mannered flowers (manier Blumen), depicted in a looser and somewhat overblown style based on the work of still-life flower painters and interior designers like Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699) and Louis Tessier (1719?-1781), later referred to as “naturalistic” flowers.
The Meissen manufactory operated under a system of division of labor. Flower and fruit painters were paid less than workers who specialized in figures and landscapes, and most painters received pay by the piece rather than a regular wage. Gold painting and polishing was the work of another division of specialists. In the late eighteenth century flower painters were even busier and consumer taste for floral decoration on domestic “china” has endured into our own time, but with the exception of a manufactory like Meissen most floral patterns are now applied by transfers and are not hand-painted directly onto the porcelain.
The rim of the plate has a shallow relief pattern with a trellis and diaper design known as the old Brandenstein (Alt Brandenstein) named for Friedrich August von Brandenstein, who in 1739 took the position of chief master of the kitchen at the Saxon court. Following the appointment to the manufactory in 1733 of court sculptor Johann Joachim Kaendler (1706-1775) modeling techniques became more sophisticated. The process of creating shallow relief patterns was laborious and required considerable skill. The sources for designs in relief came from pattern books and engravings, especially those by the French designer Jean Bérain the Elder (1638-1711), and the Nuremberg designer Paul Decker (1677-1713) among many others. These designs were applied in architecture, interior stucco work and wood carving, furniture, wall coverings, and ceramics. The “old Brandenstein” pattern was first recorded at Meissen in Johann Friedrich Eberlein’s (1695-1749) work report of 1741.
On graphic sources for Meissen porcelain see Möller, K. A., “Meissen Pieces Based on Graphic Originals” in Pietsch, U., Banz, C., 2010, Triumph of the Blue Swords: Meissen Porcelain for Aristocracy and Bourgoisie 1710-1815, pp.85-93; Cassidy-Geiger, M., 1996, ‘Graphic Sources for Meissen Porcelain’ in Metropolitan Museum Journal, 31, pp.99-126.
On the painting division at Meissen see Rückert, R., 1990, Biographische Daten der Meißener Manufakturisten des 18. Jahrhunderts, pp. 134-136.
On the Alt Brandenstein pattern see Reinheckel, G., 1968, ‘Plastiche Dekorationsformen im Meissner Porzellan des 18 Jahrhunderts’ in Keramos, 41/42, Juli/Oktober, pp.71-72.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 388-389.
Location:
Currently not on view
Credit Line:
Dr. Hans Syz
ID Number:
CE.63.245
Catalog number:
63.245
Collector/donor number:
440
Accession number:
250446
See more items in:
Home and Community Life: Ceramics and Glass
The Hans C. Syz Collection
Meissen Porcelain: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishings
Data Source:
National Museum of American History
GUID:
http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a3-d88b-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:nmah_575013