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Cup and saucer

Manufactory Meissen Manufactory German
Factory director Böttger Period
1717–20
Not on view
The Meissen factory, established outside Dresden in 1710, was the first in Europe to discover the formula for hard-paste porcelain. This coffee cup with saucer is one of the earliest manufactured at Meissen. It is decorated with a metallic luster glaze in the interior of both the cup and the saucer. The gold content of this glaze, which produced the pearly iridescence, made it an expensive type of decoration, underscoring the high status of coffee drinking.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Cup and saucer
  • Manufactory: Meissen Manufactory (German, 1710–present)
  • Factory director: Böttger Period (1713–1720)
  • Date: 1717–20
  • Culture: German, Meissen
  • Medium: Hard-paste porcelain
  • Dimensions: Height (cup .83): 2 3/4 in. (7 cm); Diameter (saucer .84): 4 1/2 in. (11.4 cm)
  • Classification: Ceramics-Porcelain
  • Credit Line: Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, in memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson, 1954
  • Object Number: 54.147.83, .84
  • Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

More Artwork

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Teabowl and saucer, Vienna, Hard-paste porcelain, Austrian, Vienna
Teabowl and saucer
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ca. 1720–30
Pouring vessel (Kendi), Meissen Manufactory German, Stoneware with raised decoration, German, Meissen
Pouring vessel (Kendi)
Manufactory Meissen Manufactory
ca. 1710–12
Ocarina, Max Freyer & Co., porcelain, German
Ocarina
Attributed to Max Freyer & Co.
19th century
Cup (with a view of the Odeonsplatz, Munich) and saucer, Hard-paste porcelain, German, Nymphenburg
Cup (with a view of the Odeonsplatz, Munich) and saucer
German, Nymphenburg
ca. 1845
Cup and saucer (part of a service), Meissen Manufactory German, Hard-paste porcelain, German, Meissen
Cup and saucer (part of a service)
Manufactory Meissen Manufactory
After a print by Wenceslaus Hollar
After a composition by Francis Barlow
model introduced 1738

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