Bronze Age Gold from Wales

Teacup and saucer, soft-paste porcelain, clear white translucency, lustrous glaze. The cup standing on a shallow rounded foot, swelling sides with slightly flared lip, high kidney-shaped and scrolled handle; shallow saucer with flat unglazed base. The cup decorated with a gilt band at the foot and lip, the lower part of the exterior white, with a gilt band of loops and rays, the remainder with an unevenly applied blue-green ground ornamented with an oeil de perdrix pattern (reserves of gilt spots within a border of blue dots) reserved with two oval panels painted with roses and garden flowers within a border of gilt beads; the interior with a broad gilt line at the lip above a band of pendant loops, rays and dots, and painted with a bouquet of garden flowers in the centre; outer face of handle gilt. The saucer painted with three oval reserves of flowers on the oeil de perdrix rim, the centre reserved with a bouquet of flowers within a gilded border of loops and rays.