Getty Museum

Cup and Saucer (gobelet et soucoupe enfoncé, première grandeur)

Date

1762

Medium

Soft-paste porcelain, pink ground color overlaid with blue enamel, colored enamel decoration and gilding

Culture

French

Department

Decorative Arts

Institution

Getty Museum

A sick or elderly person with an unsteady hand could have comfortably used this cup with its recessed saucer. The deep well kept the drink in the cup from being easily knocked over and spilled. One of few examples of Sèvres porcelain with a pink ground overlaid with dark blue, the cup has unusual swirling patterns that enliven the ground, while bunches of fruit and flowers fill the white reserves. Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV, purchased all the cups with recessed saucers listed in the Sèvres porcelain manufactory's sales records between 1759 and 1764. This cup and saucer therefore probably came from her collection. She paid between sixty and seventy *livres* for each cup--the equivalent of a month's wages for an experienced porcelain painter.

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