Getty Museum

Cup and Saucer (gobelet litron et soucoupe, deuxième grandeur)

Date

1773

Medium

Soft paste porcelain, turquoise blue (bleu céleste) ground color, polychrome enamel decoration, and gilding

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

In the 1700s, hosts and hostesses served tea in cups such as this one. To cool a little of the hot liquid at a time, a guest would have poured some tea into the deep saucer and then drunk. Paintings known through engraved copies were popular sources for decoration on porcelain vessels in the 1700s. The porcelain painter Étienne-Jean Chabry *fils* (son), copied the scene on this cup from an engraving of Philip James de Loutherbourg's painting, *The Cherished Lamb.* The saucer, with its inscription *L'Avare* (The miser), refers to the comedy of the same name by Molière. The paintings on cups and saucers did not necessarily have to relate to each other.

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