- Museum number
- P83.1
P83.2 - Object
- Tea bowl and saucer, soft-paste porcelain, Worcester Porcelain Factory, about 1760
- Description
- Teabowl, with saucer, P 83.2, English, Worcester, Robert Hancock, c. 1770. SOft-paste porcelain decorated with black transfer-printed pastoral scenes. The bowl of open shape, single black line around inner rim, the outside decorated with two black transfer-printed scenes known as the "Love in a Garden" series, on one side a couple on a garden seat with vertical curving slats in the back and cabriole legs, a pillared rustic tea table before them, on the other side a balustrade, pedestal and urn, a formal garden beyone with a fountain, and the signature beneath the pedestal "R. Hancock fecit"
- Materials
- Porcelain
- On display?
- Yes
Further description
- Simple name
- cup
saucer - Subject
- Pastoral
- Dimensions
- regular: 14.5cm (w)
Tea bowl and saucer
Worcester Porcelain Factory
Soft-paste porcelain, about 1760
P83
Bequest of Mrs Frances Calder, 1954
Tea is our National Drink. It’s drunk by everyone. In the eighteenth century it was an expensive luxury. To drink it was to make a statement about how rich and fashionable you were. On this tea bowl and saucer an elegant young couple are shown drinking tea – and coffee – in a garden.
Worcester porcelain was particularly suited to tea wares because it was less likely to crack when hot liquid was poured into it. Tea wares made by some other factories were more fragile. Some believe this is how the practice of adding milk before the hot tea started.
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