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Lot 168

A Worcester coffee cup, circa 1754

15 December 2020, 10:30 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £956.25 inc. premium

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A Worcester coffee cup, circa 1754

Of 'Scratch Cross' type and of plain shape with a grooved handle, transfer-printed in black with a 'Smoky Primitive' type print of 'The Fortune Teller', depicting a peasant woman with a baby on her back and a little boy at her side, reading the palm of an elegant lady, her companion nearby, a fine house in the distance, all picked out in bright colours, 6.4cm high, scratch cross and incised line

Footnotes

Provenance
Billie Pain Collection, Bonhams sale, 26 November 2003, lot 166
Ralph Kenber Collection

There are a small number of coffee cups with this print extant, but they would appear to be left uncoloured save for the current lot. See The Watney Collection, sold by Bonhams, 22 September 1999, lots 179 (sepia) and 180 (black) and The Liane Richards Collection, also sold by Bonhams, 13 April 2016, lot 134 (sepia). For an extensive footnote discussing this class of early transfer printed cups, probably carried out in Birmingham, see p.94 of The Watney Collection, part 1.

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