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Meissen Porcelain Factory

Cup and saucer 1763-73

Hard-paste porcelain | 4.7 x 13.5 cm (whole object) | RCIN 39869

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  • A Marcolini period Meissen hard-paste porcelain tea cup and 2 saucers, decorated with pink and green naturalistic flowers and leaves in sprays and single blooms on a white ground. The cup has a single flower painted inside. The cup is of rounded form and has a loop handle, moulded S-scrolls around body and all three pieces have gilt rims.

    Throughout the nineteenth century, florally decorated porcelain continued to be produced. The factory at Meissen, established in 1708 under the state control of the Electors of Saxony, continued to produce shapes and decoration which had been popular a century earlier. A composite tea service in the Royal Collection dates from the Marcolini period of the Meissen factory, between 1796 and 1814. It was purchased several decades after this by Alexandra, Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra, and placed on display in Marlborough House, the London home of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The garden flowers of roses, wallflowers, sweet peas and daisies, painted in loose bouquets, would have appealed to Alexandra’s taste in interior decoration; her boudoir at Marlborough House was home to a profusion of plants and porcelain, in common with many of the more public spaces.

    Text adapted from Painting Paradise: The Art of the Garden, London, 2015.
    Provenance

    Acquired by Queen Alexandra, when Princess of Wales, and first recorded at Marlborough House in 1877.

  • Creator(s)
  • Medium and techniques

    Hard-paste porcelain

    Measurements

    4.7 x 13.5 cm (whole object)

  • Place of Production

    Saxony [Germany]


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