In the collection of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in the United States, porcelain pieces from a small chocolate set decorated with illustrations of the human body en grisaille, demonstrate materiality as the precursor of form and image. Made and molded out of kaolin clay, bisque fired, glazed and fired again by Chinese craftsmen in Jingdezhen, China during the Qing dynasty, these translucent yet strong blank porcelain pieces were shipped by the Dutch East India Company as ballast, via Batavia (modern day Jakarta), to the Netherlands. Unlike those lost at sea from the Geldermalsen, they were transformed and recontextualized in their afterlife by Pleun Pira (1734-1799) an Amsterdam based ceramic painter in the mid-eighteenth century. The set is inscribed on the inside of the cover of a sugar bowl with a few lines of text in in Dutch;“Gischeldert etn The Servies van de Annatomie door Pleun Pira 1761” which roughly translates to “The Anatomy Tableware, painted by Pleun Pira, 1761”. This is an anomaly, as Pira is one of the few Dutch porcelain painters, at this time, who signed their work. On the reverse, there are drawings illustrating various muscles of the human heart. Additionally and most noteworthy are three depictions of a fetus in utero on a small chocolate cup. The images imitating earlier Dutch medical texts directly correlate with artisanal epistemologies and knowledge exchange at the time. Furthermore, the presence and form of the chocolate cup is a dual signifier that on one hand alludes to the Middle Passage sugar plantations and cocoa pod trade in the new world dependent on enslaved people and indigenous populations in South America; while also reinforcing eighteenth century female gendered associations exhibited in Bonnart’s engraving, Kaendler’s Meissen pieces, Boucher’s paintings, and Liotard’s pastels. Indeed, probate records taken from Antwerp and Delft in the late seventeenth to mid- eighteenth centuries demonstrate a marked increase in the objects necessary to make this drink in every social class. Ceramics have been used throughout the Atlantic world to convey the meaning of a wide range of ideas and communicate emotions. Perhaps Pira put the three images of a fetus as a visual metaphor; a small rounded vessel, containing something precious, recalling the shape of a pregnant woman that was born of clay as was the porcelain. Pleun Pira’s anatomical set , in its materiality, reflects the globalization of the modern world and paths into modernity that were shaped by eighteenth century networks stretching across geographical and cultural boundaries.
Hewitt, A. (2023). The windows of momus anatomical decorative art in the eighteenth century (Order No. 30637429). Available from Dissertations & Theses @ University of Delaware. (2866689830). Retrieved from https://login.udel.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/windows-momus-anatomical-decorative-art/docview/2866689830/se-2
Ann Hewitt: 496 Waymarket Drive, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48103, USA; email: ahewitt@dia.org
Education
2023 Master of Arts in American Material Culture
Museum Studies and Public Engagement Certificate
University of Delaware, Newark, DE., USA
2021-2123 Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library Lois F. McNeil Fellow
2020 Bachelor of Arts, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA., USA
Majors: Ancient Studies, Anthropology
Nexus in Museums, Archives and PublicHistory
2018 College Year Athens, Dikemes Center for Hellenic Studies, Fall semester , Greece
Professional Experience
Detroit Institute of Art, Collections Information Specialist, September 2023 to present
Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Wing, Graduate MuSe Internship, June-August 2023
Fort Ticonderoga, Edward W. Pell Graduate Museum Collections Fellowship, June-Aug. 2022
Winterthur Museum Garden & Library Shaker Furniture Intern, April- May 2021
Historic Deerfield Summer Fellow History and Material Culture, June-August 2021
American Museum of Natural History North American Archaeology Internship, Sept.-Nov. 2020
Porter-Phelps-Huntington House Museum, Hadley MA, Museum Assistant, Sept.-Nov. 2019
Wiener laboratory Intern at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Oct.- Dec. 2018
Archaeological Fieldwork
Archeology Technician, Northeast Archeology Research Center Inc. Manchester & Rutland VT, October 2020
Expedition to Chu-Ili mountains, Kazakhstan, August 2019
Archeology Field School Technician, Poggio Civitate, Murlo, Italy, June, July 2019
Archeology Technician, Swedish Expedition Hala Sultan Tekke, Larnaka, Cyprus, April, May 2019
Intern, Wiener laboratory at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, October- December 2018
Conference Presentation
Presented paper on The Emergence of Deaf Culture in Nineteenth Century Ceramics for the Center for Material Culture Studies at University of Delaware, Third Biennial Conference “The Disability Gaze: Material and Visual Approaches”, April 29-30, 2022
Extra Curricular
Thingstor - a Material Culture Database, University of Delaware September 2021 to May 2022
Program in New England Studies, Historic New England, June 2019
Honors and Awards
Brock Jobe Scholarship for MA Thesis Research in United Kingdom, 06/2022
Walter Read Hovey Graduate Scholarship in Art History, 07/2022
Decorative Arts Trust Research Grant, 05/2022
Glenn Harwood Memorial Scholarship, Collectors’ Day, Hammond-Harwood House, 11/2021
Mount Holyoke European Alumni Council Award 5/2020
Louise Fitz Randolph Fellowship 4/2021
Mount Holyoke College The Adaline S. Potter ‘31 Scholarship 1/2020
Savoy Orders Pigott Scholarship in Arts and Humanities 7/2019
Mount Holyoke College McCulloch International Studies Program Scholarship 5/2019
DAR Michael T. and Mary L. Cloyd Scholarship in Archives Management 5/2019
Mount Holyoke Lynk-UAR Fellowship 4/2019
Murlo Foundation Caroline Horvitz Grant 4/2019
The Explorers Club of New York Youth Activity Fund Grant 4/2019
Mount Holyoke College The Adaline S. Pates Potter ‘31 Scholarship 1/2019
Mount Holyoke College The Sandra Klamkin Schocket Class of 1958 Scholarship 1/2019
United States Department of State Benjamin Gilman Scholarship 1/2019
Frederic Whitaker and Eileen Monaghan Whitaker Foundation Museum Studies
Scholarship 11/2018
Mount Holyoke College Laurel Fellowship 2018
DIKEMES Center for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies Ismene Phylactopoulou
Memorial Scholarship 2018
Fairfield County’s Community Foundation Ulysses J. Dunne & Ulysses J. Dunne Jr.
Scholarship 2018-2020
The World Affairs Forum Norman Woodberry Scholarship for Study Abroad 2018
In the collection of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library (United States), porcelain pieces from a small chocolate set decorated with illustrations of the human body en grisaille, demonstrate materiality as the precursor of form and image. Made and molded of kaolin clay, and fired twice by Chinese craftsmen in Jingdezhen, during the Qing dynasty, these translucent yet strong blank porcelain pieces were shipped by the Dutch East India Company as ballast, via Batavia (Jakarta) to the Netherlands where, they were transformed and recontextualized in their afterlife by Pleun Pira (1734-1799) an Amsterdam based ceramic painter in the mid-eighteenth century.