Behind the Gift

As the holiday gift-buying season shifts into high gear, take a moment to think about the complex, nuanced social interactions that revolve around the seemingly simple act of giving and receiving gifts. The choice of gift can signal numerous clues to identity, such as race or gender, with issues of class and social status not far behind. Psychologically, the giver and the receiver are perhaps each more interested in how the gift reflects his own personality, and less interested in the act of generosity. In the end, the physical object often takes a backseat to the concepts it represents.In a smart turn, “Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts,” at the Bard Graduate Center, explores this coded gift-giving ritual from the point of view of the object. And the objects in question are the diplomatic offerings made at the Meissen porcelain factory in Dresden between 1710 and 1763. Curator Maureen Cassidy-Geiger brings together nearly 300 objects — many on view for the first time in America — ranging from snuff boxes, vases, busts, and toilet services to the re-creation of an elaborate royal dessert table complete with a sugar-paste parterre. With these objects, Ms. Cassidy-Geiger weaves an engaging narrative, casting the gift as a propaganda tool used for both secretive backdoor deals and showy examples of allegiance and power. To bolster this narrative, the pieces in the exhibition are grouped by geographic region, placing gifts given to Danish and other German courts on the main floor; gifts to Austria, Sweden, and Italy on the second floor, and gifts to England, Russia, and France on the third floor. These groupings effectively show how the Saxon rulers of this period — namely Augustus the Strong and his son, Augustus III — understood the importance of tailoring their diplomatic gifts to the specific tastes of the recipient. And these specialized orders, in turn, led to the unforeseen but fortuitous result of directly influencing the evolution of forms created by the Meissen artisans.Reflecting both this geographic specificity and groundbreaking design are the five pieces that make up a garniture of allegorical figures created in 1742 for Louis XV. The four smaller vases represent the four elements — fire, water, air, and earth — while the larger fifth vase represents the glory of the French kingdom. Like almost nothing previously created at Meissen, these five vases are an unlikely but highly successful combination of nonstop French rococo decoration and cool Germanic restraint. Composed of an all-white body free of any painted decoration — a sexy minimalist technique used repeatedly to great effect throughout Meissen’s history — this garniture set is carved in extreme detail with as many allegorical motifs as would possibly fit. And even though ships, horses, dolphins, turkeys, putti, maidens with baskets, deer, and all manner of flora and fauna crowd around the vases, a Germanic sensibility reins everything in before tumbling off the edge.But why was Meissen porcelain, a commodity without much intrinsic value, chosen as the preferred gift of kings over the more commonly used gold, silver, jewels, and even rare foodstuffs? The answer is simple: Meissen objects were unlike anything ever produced in European kilns, making them a uniquely lavish gift that only Saxony could bestow. For centuries, the craze for delicate, translucent porcelain, known as “white gold,” imported from Asia captivated the imagination of Europeans who were desperate to create similar pieces of their own. It was a historic triumph, then, when in 1710, while attempting to transmute base metal into gold, Johan Friedrich Böttger accidentally discovered the crucial missing ingredient to hard-paste porcelain, kaolin, and produced the first examples of European porcelain for Saxony. The craze for porcelain was so prevalent in Europe that anyone receiving Meissen as a gift understood exactly what they were getting and why.When Maria Amalia, Saxon Princess and Queen of Naples, received a porcelain toilet service to celebrate the birth of her son Philip in 1747, she knew very well that it was not a gift for use but a symbol of her wealth and station. The style of decoration — a gold and monochrome copper-green known as “Green Watteau” — was only used on gifts for the royal Saxon family. The porcelain material of this service renders it purely decorative, reinforcing its nature as a luxury item suitable for a queen.Not every piece in “Fragile Diplomacy” is a showstopper, and a few even highlight the lack of original design ideas that often brought early Meissen down into the realm of kitschy knockoffs. But the point at Bard is not just to put on display a collection of pretty things — though there are plenty to be found and they are of course enjoyable in their own right. What is brought to light is the often-overlooked ability of decorative arts objects to offer insights into the complicated cultural milieu in which they were made.Until February 11 (18 W. 86th St., between Columbus Avenue and Central Park West, 212-501-3000).

Behind the Gift

Behind the Gift

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