Teabowl and saucer 1715 - 1735

Editor: So, here we have an 18th-century teabowl and saucer, created sometime between 1715 and 1735. Both are crafted from porcelain and decorated with miniature monochrome scenes. The saucer shows a dramatic scene – is that a bear fight? The whole thing feels both delicate and surprisingly intense. What grabs your attention most about this set? Curator: That bear fight indeed pulls you in, doesn’t it? It’s as if they’ve bottled up some grand opera and poured it into this teacup-sized drama. To me, it speaks of the era's fascination with both refinement and the wild, untamed world. You see, porcelain was a highly prized material at the time, but decorating it with scenes of the hunt, even slightly absurd ones like this, was also quite trendy. Do you think that tension – the preciousness of the object versus the roughness of the scene – creates a certain energy? Editor: Definitely. There's this contrast between the formal aspects and what it depicts. I mean, we have elegant material and clean lines, and then – bam! – hand-to-paw combat. I see these men fighting the bears and other scenes with figures armed with spears as little glimpses of daily life, translated onto something really refined, if that makes any sense. Curator: It does. They’re essentially taking genre painting and shrinking it down to fit on a teacup! Now, it makes me wonder what sort of conversations this teacup sparked, who were these daring hunters? Editor: I’m left thinking about the stories these images could tell. Not just the literal narratives, but also about taste, trade, and this need to capture so many contrasting ideas in something so small. Curator: Absolutely! It’s a small object reflecting big ideas. It has given me a different perspective about genre-scene miniatures as snapshots of society, like little porcelain newsreels.