Exhibition dates: September 16, 2008 – April 19, 2009
Exhibition location: Wrightsman Exhibition Gallery
Press preview: Monday, September 15, 10:00 a.m. – noon
The porcelain factories of Berlin, Sèvres, and Vienna achieved a remarkable level of artistic and technical skill in the first half of the 19th century, and the quality of painted decoration practiced at these three factories at this time has never been surpassed. Approximately 75 extraordinary examples from these three European porcelain manufactories will be on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning September 16, 2008, in the exhibition Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800-1850. The exhibition will illustrate the exchange of ideas and styles among the factories that resulted in some of the most splendid porcelain ever produced.
The exhibition is made possible by Richard Baron Cohen.
Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800-1850 will be arranged in four sections: Recollections of Antiquity, The Natural World, View Painting, and
Recording History. Recollections of Antiquity will examine the fascination with
the ancient world that extended not only to its images but also to its materials and methods of manufacture. On view will be vases and pieces of tableware embellished with popular forms of decoration in antiquity, including cameos and micromosaics. The Natural World will feature the realistic botanical representations on porcelain that were inspired by a new interest in naturalism in the early 19th century. Individual flowers or floral clusters became the subject of "portraits" that were intended to be scientifically exact. Examples in the exhibition will include plates and cups depicting water lilies, lotus flowers, and roses. Also on view in this section will be exotic and local birds painted with a decorative effect on porcelain, including a Viennese birdcage cup and two plates from the superb Service des oiseaux d'Amérique du Sud by Madame Knip, a specialist in the field of ornithology who was employed at Sèvres to create the service. View Painting will highlight works such as vases and tea and coffee services that had specific cities and panoramic landscapes as decoration. Popular since the late 18th century and an important source of income for porcelain manufactories, many of the pieces decorated in this manner were used by Prussian kings as gifts. The final section, Recording History, will include early 19th-century porcelain that portrayed important contemporary events. Often based on drawings, these works recorded notable historical occasions and contemporary interiors, and frequently served as personal gifts. An outstanding example in this category is a goblet and saucer with a depiction of Captain Cook's ships amongst the icebergs of the Atlantic.
Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800-1850 is organized at the Metropolitan Museum by Jeffrey Munger, Curator in the Department of European Sculpture and Decorative Arts.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue that will be available in the Metropolitan Museum's book shops.
Related Programs
A variety of education programs will be presented in conjunction with the exhibition, including a lecture on September 19, "Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800–1850 — Inspired, Imitated, Stolen: Interactivities of Form and Decoration on Early 19th-Century Sèvres, Berlin and Vienna Porcelain" by Samuel Wittwer, curator of the ceramic collections and the KPM-archives, Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg.
The exhibition and its related programs will be listed on the Museum's website at www.metmuseum.org.
Prior to its showing at the Metropolitan, the exhibition was on display at the Schloss Charlottenberg in Berlin, the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna, and the Musée National de Céramique in Sèvres, France.
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September 9, 2008
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