The coffee cup

The coffee cup was made around the middle of the 18th century in the Meissen porcelain manufactory. The Meissen factory was established in 1710 by Augustus II the Strong as the first porcelain factory in Europe and it still operates today. A valuable collection of Meissen porcelain was gathered in the Łańcut castle by Elżbieta Lubomirska, née Czartoryska (1736-1817), and by its later owners - the Potocki noble family. Most of the Meissen porcelain was transported abroad in 1944 by Alfred Potocki. The two coffee cups with saucers (see inventory no. S. 2827 MŁ) are one of the few objects made in Meissen that belonged to the old owners of the castle and remained in the museum. They were probably part of a coffee set. The above cup is made of thin white porcelain. It is pear-shaped and has a distinctive edge with a rim formed by arches. The cup's handle is shaped like two intertwined twigs painted an olive-yellow colour. The cup is decorated with a Chinese-style motif known as indianische Blumen: a pinkish-red trail of stylised twigs with dark red and yellow accents. Inside the cup, a single flower is painted at the bottom, and along the rim, there is a strip of geometric ornament. The pattern adorning the cup and saucer was popular in the Meissen manufactory; it was used on porcelain tableware, also in green. Barbara Trojnar