Museum number
C392A
C392B
Object
Cup and saucer, Sèvres Porcelain Factory, soft-paste porcelain, 1788
Description
Coffee can, part of a set with saucer, French, Sevres c 1779. Soft-paste porcelain decorated in enamel colours with gilding. The straight sided cup with light blue ground decorated with neo-classical scrollwork in puce, gilt rim and edged with gilt lines, large reserve panel edged in gold, with a single scene in sepia depicting Spia harbour, classical ruins to the side.
Materials
Porcelain
Inscription
Serves cipher enclosing K and F
On display?
Yes

Further description

Simple name
Cup
Saucer
Subject
Landscape
Cup and saucer Sèvres Porcelain Factory Soft-paste porcelain, 1788 C392 The concept of ‘good taste’ first appeared in the eighteenth century. The rise of the middle classes meant that relatively ordinary people were able to purchase fashionable luxury goods for the first time. Early in the century the heavy baroque style remained fashionable. During the 1730s the new lighter rococo style appeared with its asymmetries and motifs based on nature. Neoclassicism, derived from Greece and Rome and inspired by archaeological discoveries, emerged in the 1750s partly as a reaction to the excesses of the rococo. It was to dominate art and design until the 1830s.

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