Meissen coffee pot and cover
Object Details
- Description
- TITLE: Meissen coffeepot
- MAKER: Meissen Manufactory
- PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: ceramic, porcelain (overall material)
- MEASUREMENTS: H. 9¼"
- OBJECT NAME: Coffeepot
- PLACE MADE: Meissen, Saxony, Germany
- DATE MADE: 1750-1760
- SUBJECT: The Hans Syz Collection
- Art
- Domestic Furnishing
- Industry and Manufacturing
- CREDIT LINE: Hans C. Syz Collection
- ID NUMBER: 1992.0427.13 a,b
- COLLECTOR/ DONOR: 198 a,b
- ACCESSION NUMBER:
- (DATA SOURCE: National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center)
- MARKS: Crossed swords in inderglaze blue; “N” or “2” incised.
- PURCHASED FROM: Adolf Beckhardt, The Art Exchange, New York, 1942.
- This coffeepot 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 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 shape of the coffeepot is based on contemporary silver models and it is painted in polychrome overglaze enamels with sprays of naturalistic flowers.
- 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 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 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. In the late eighteenth century flower painters were even busier and consumer preference 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.
- In the eighteenth century tea, coffee, and chocolate was served in the private apartments of aristocratic women, usually in the company of other women, but also with male admirers and intimates present. In affluent middle-class households tea was usually served by a senior female member of the family, often in an informal gathering in the family’s private apartments. Tea and sugar were expensive items and kept under lock and key by the mistress of the house or a housekeeper. Coffee was more popular in Germany than tea, but most services included a coffeepot and a teapot. Coffee houses were exclusively male establishments and operated as gathering places for a variety of purposes in the interests of commerce, politics, culture, and social pleasure.
- 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 coffee see Ukers, W. H., 1922, All AboutCoffee; on the practice of drinking tea, coffee, and chocolate see Bowman, P.B., 1995, In Praise of Hot Liquors: The Study of Chocolate, Coffee and Tea-drinking 1600-1850; See also Weinberg, B.A., Bealer, B.K., 2002, The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World’s Most Popular Drug. On the coffee house see Ellis, M. 2011, The Coffee House: A Cultural History.
- Hans Syz, J. Jefferson Miller II, Rainer Rückert, 1979, Catalogue of the Hans Syz Collection: Meissen Porcelain and Hausmalerei, pp.400-401.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- date made
- 1750-1760
- ID Number
- 1992.0427.13ab
- catalog number
- 1992.0427.13ab
- accession number
- 1992.0427
- collector/donor number
- 198
- maker
- Meissen Manufactory
- Object Name
- coffeepot
- Physical Description
- blue (overall color)
- hard-paste porcelain (overall material)
- polychrome enamels (overall color)
- natural flowers (overall style)
- Measurements
- overall: 9 1/4 in; 23.495 cm
- overall: 9 1/8 in x 6 1/2 in x 4 13/16 in; 23.1775 cm x 16.51 cm x 12.22375 cm
- 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
- Subject
- Manufacturing
- Record ID
- nmah_1415455
