egg-cup
- Museum number
- Franks.332
- Description
-
Egg cup; soft-paste porcelain; ribbed moulding near foot and on lower part of bowl; convex base; decorated in underglaze-blue with a regularly-painted shell and scroll pattern, and a band of blue with white circles containing dots; no marks.
- Production date
- 1700-1710 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 8 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Dawson 1994
The rather greyish tone of the blue suggests over-firing, confirmed by slight blisters near the foot. Although of different dimensions and with a differently formed foot, the decoration on this egg cup is similar to that of Franks.354 which bears the mark of the Mennecy factory.
Egg cups were made in at least one other form at the Saint-Cloud factory, including one with a different stem. For an example in the Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris, with a different foot and more elaborate stem, see Dupont, Patrick, ‘Porcelaines françaises aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles’, Paris, 1987, p. 20, fig. 2; an example in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham, inv. Cer. 1988.349, with the sun face mark, of another differing form, is illustrated by P. Klaber, The Enid Goldblatt Collection, ‘Antique Collector’, October 1987, p. 86, fig. 5.
There are no comparable examples.
Literature: Franks, Sir Augustus Wollaston, ‘Catalogue of a Collection of Continental Porcelain’, London, 1896, no. 332
- Location
- Not on display
- Condition
- Chip to rim.
- Acquisition date
- 1897
- Department
- Britain, Europe and Prehistory
- Registration number
- Franks.332
