Object Details
maker
Meissen Manufactory
Description
TITLE: Meissen teapot and cover (Hausmaler)
MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain, hard paste (overall material)
MEASUREMENTS: 5⅞" 15 cm
OBJECT NAME: Teapot
PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
DATE MADE: 1713-1720, Meissen
SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
Art
Domestic Furnishing
Industry and Manufacturing
CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
ID NUMBER: 76.377. a,b
COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 740, a,b
ACCESSION NUMBER:
(DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
MARKS: None
PURCHASED FROM: Blumka Gallery, New York, 1947.
This teapot 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.
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.
The teapot was made in the Meissen manufactory but painted outside by an independent artist. Hausmalerei is a German word that means in literal translation ‘home painting’, and it refers to the practice of painting enamels and gold onto the surface of blank ceramics and glass in workshops outside the manufactory of origin. Beginning in the seventeenth century the work of the Hausmaler varied in quality from the outstanding workshops of Nuremberg, Augsburg, and Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland), to the less skilled efforts of amateur artists. Early Meissen porcelain was sought after for this purpose, and wealthy patrons of local enameling and gilding workshops purchased undecorated porcelain, often of out-moded or inferior quality, which was then enameled with subjects of their choice. Hausmalerei was at first acceptable to the early porcelain manufactories like Meissen and Vienna, and Meissen sent blank porcelain to Augsburg workshops for decoration, but as the market became more competitive they tried to eradicate the practice. It was a temptation for Meissen porcelain painters to take on extra work as Hausmaler to augment their low pay, and the manufactory cautioned or imprisoned them if Hausmalerei activity was suspected or discovered.
The shape of the teapot came from Chinese prototypes and the design of dragons entwined with foliage is in relief. Painted in black and gold the dragon design is more in the style of European grotesques of the seventeenth century than Chinese in character, and possibly came from the Preissler family workshop in Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland). Ignaz Preissler used many printed sources from the large repertoire of seventeenth-century baroque ornament available to artists and artisans in the eighteenth century, and also created a hybrid form of chinoiserie when the style became popular in the 1720s and 1730s.
On Hausmaler see Ulrich Pietsch, 2011, Early Meissen Porcelain: The Wark Collection from The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, pp. 43-46; Pazaurek, G. E., 1925, Deutsche Fayence und Porzellan Hausmaler.
On the impact of Chinese porcelain in a global context see Robert Finlay, 2010, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History.
Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection : Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp. 530-531.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1713-1720
ID Number
CE.76.377ab
accession number
1977.0166
catalog number
76.377ab
collector/donor number
740
Object Name
teapot
Physical Description
hard-paste porcelain (Boettger) (overall material)
black (Schwarzlot) and gold (overall color)
"chinoiserie" Hausmaler (overall style)
Measurements
overall:;
overall: 6 in x 4 15/16 in x 2 7/8 in; 15.24 cm x 12.54125 cm x 7.3025 cm
place made
Germany: Saxony, Meissen
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
Link to Original Record
Record ID
nmah_1415405