Comments for Brown and tan old tea cups & Blue and grey teacups

Mar 24, 2010

tea cups
by: peter

Kathy,

Thanks for uploading the photographs. They allow to see some essential details better.

The cups seem to be transferware. Transfer printing is an early European porcelain printing method. So, the decoration is not hand painted.
It appears as if the item has some age, but the cups are unlikely very old as the printing method would not have been employed in China until the 20th century.

The foot ring is a bit baffling, however. This sort of crude ring was hardly made anymore in mainstream porcelain kilns for a long time. Also, there is sand and impurities in the glaze, too much for the average kiln. These point to a dirty environment where sand, etc., could come into contact with unfired glaze or porcelain bodies. This further points to some small local kiln. In the large kilns the environment would have been controlled better since the 18th century. (see gallery images, there are some 18th century porcelain items)

Therefore, I'm afraid that this is not any form of high quality porcelain. The cups were possibly made in some small kiln for the local people, I would suppose.
If you want further opinions on this I encourage you to check out asianart.com or another forum. Hope this helps.

Peter