Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 139, The Curtain Foundation Gallery

Cup and Saucer

ca.1810-1815 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Cup and saucer of hard-paste porcelain, in Chinese lacquer style. Painted in red and black enamels and gilded with Chinese figures in a landscape. The rims are encircled by a black border with a foliated wavy stem in gold.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Cups
  • Saucer
Materials and techniques
Hard-paste porcelain painted in red and black enamels and gilded
Brief description
Cup and saucer of hard-paste porcelain, Doccia porcelain factory, Doccia porcelain factory, ca. 1810-1815
Physical description
Cup and saucer of hard-paste porcelain, in Chinese lacquer style. Painted in red and black enamels and gilded with Chinese figures in a landscape. The rims are encircled by a black border with a foliated wavy stem in gold.
Gallery label
Cup and Saucer Porcelain, in Chinese lacquer style Marks: on the cup an eight-pointed star; on the saucer a six-pointed star, in gold ITALY (DOCCIA); late 18th century Gift of Col. F. R. Waldo-Sibthorp 326 & A-1902 (Label draft attributed to John V. G. Mallet, ca. 1995)(ca. 1995)
Credit line
Given by Col. Waldo-Sibthorp
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic reference
Frescobaldi Malenchini, Livia ed. With Balleri, Rita and Rucellai, Oliva, ‘Amici di Doccia Quaderni, Numero VII, 2013, The Victoria and Albert Museum Collection’, Edizioni Polistampa, Firenze, 2014 pp. 87-88, Cat. 69 69. Cup and saucer circa 1810-1815 hard-paste porcelain painted in red, black and gold cup h. 6,3 cm; saucer diam. 13 cm on the cup and on the saucer a small gold star inv. 326&A-1902 gift: Col. Waldo-Sibthorp This cup and saucer painted with chinoiseries in gold on an enameled red background with black borders imitates the shape and decorations typical of Viennese porcelain of the Sorgenthal period which was used in Vienna staring around 1789 (TABAKOFF 2002, p. 108). The decoration is derived from Chinese lacquer and at Vienna they used both the black and coral red grounds sometimes combined especially for the tête-à-tête tea sets. The sources for the chinoiseries, according to Sheila Tabakoff, are the prints made by the Nuremburg engraver Johann Cristoph Weigel based on models by Petrus Schenk, or else the illustrations from A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing by John Stalker and George Parker, published in London in 1688. The tapered shape of the cup was used for the first time at Sèvres and catalogued as “gobelet à cerceaux” or “gobelet de la reine”. At Vienna it was paired with saucers that had a ring in the centre to hold the cup. This type of saucer was defined by Folnesics and Braun (1907, p. 70) who were the first ones to catalogue it, as “for chocolate”. At Doccia, the shape appears in the first quarter of the 19th century with decorations that are typically neoclassical (LIVERANI 1967, plate CIII). It is highly likely that this cup and saucer is a copy of a Viennese original that was formerly in the collection of the grand dukes of Tuscany; during the reign of Peter Leopold and Ferdinand III of Hapsburg Lorraine, many Viennese porcelains were added to the collection. A. d’A. Bibliography: unpublished
Collection
Accession number
326&A-1902

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Record createdJune 24, 2009
Record URL
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