Cup with saucer

From the inscription on the bottom of the vessels we learn that they were made in November 1836 in the Kiev factory. In fact, the factory was located in Mezhygorie, not far from Kiev. The faience factory was established on the site of a monastery burnt down in 1798. The city council soon handed over its management to the Kyiv governor, and from 1822 the factory was placed under tsarist administration. After several decades, in 1858, it was decided to hand over the Kiev-Mezhgorod faience factory to private tenants. First the Kiev merchants Barski brothers became the owners of the business, and in 1866 a certain Shishkov took it over. In 1875 the company was sold again and soon stopped operating.

The factory mainly produced faience, but also porcelain. It produced tableware, picture frames, icons, traditional Orthodox Easter eggs, lamps, pharmacy equipment, and bisque figurines. The Kiev faience and decorative products of Mezhgorod factory were of good quality, with varied, also typical for the mid-19th-century antique patterns, and were not inferior in quality and design to the thin-walled English cream ware faience. From the 1830s, the date of production (year and month) began to be stamped on the products.

The faience cup with bell-shaped saucer belongs to a series of vessels with floral decoration in the form of relief embossed on the outer walls. The surface of the saucer and cup together with the ear is decorated with a relief floral pattern in the fabric type. The set was covered with a blue transparent glaze. Other glaze colours such as pink, green, beige and grey were also used for this type of ware.

Bożena Kasperowicz