Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Tea bowl and saucer, hard-paste porcelain, creamy white paste, good translucency, slight green tinge to the glaze; the tea bowl with a high foot rim and spreading lip, the saucer dish-shaped, with a foot rim; the tea bowl painted on either side with a commedia del arte figure (one probably Crispin, a bearded man in a black coat and hat, white ruff, and doublet breeches and hose in lilac, red and violet, the other a masked figure in black with a red cloak) standing on a green ground shading to brown, and flanked by Indian flowers in red, yellow and green, white ground with flying insects, the foot gilt above three red concentric lines, the lip also gilt; the interior painted at the bottom in red with a circular reserve of Indian flowers and insects; the saucer painted within three concentric lines with a figure, possibly Scaramouche, in a black mask and doublet and red/brown breeches and hose standing on a similar ground between Indian flowers with insects and a bird on the white ground, the rim gilt.

This tea bowl and saucer are painted with theatrical figures from the commedia dell'arte. They are probably part of a tea and coffee service attributed to Johann Gregorius Höroldt (1696-1775), master decorator at the Meissen factory.

Paentiwyd ffigyrau theatrig o'r commedia dell'arte ar y bowlen a soser te hwn. Mwy na thebyg eu bod yn rhan o set de a choffi a briodolir i Johann Gregorius Höroldt (1696-1775), prif addurnwr yn ffatri Meissen.