Custard cup with cover and tray 1880 - 1890

Editor: Here we have an ornate custard cup with cover and tray, created by the Royal Porcelain Manufactory between 1880 and 1890. It's made of ceramic and porcelain and resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It feels almost excessively decorated, quite fussy. What cultural associations do you think a piece like this carries? Curator: Fussy is one way to put it! I’d say the decorations on this piece tap into a very specific yearning for refinement, an echo of the Rococo style, with its flowers and curvilinear designs. This isn't just about drinking custard; it's about projecting an image of cultivated taste. Note the flowers, commonly connected to ideas of spring, youth and rebirth, juxtaposed against the container which is there to receive custard, traditionally made for convalescence. Any ideas on why that is, or what meaning that has? Editor: It’s definitely not something I would have put together. Do you mean a visual symbol, that despite the associations with illness that porcelain pieces like these have, flowers imply vitality? Almost a symbolic cure in itself, a pick-me-up? Curator: Precisely! And consider the material, porcelain, a highly prized and delicate material, signifying status and fragility. All this fuss points to more than mere functionality. It presents cultural values associated with the elite – leisure, delicate beauty, almost performative fragility. Look at that handle: beautiful but probably hard to hold! This tension creates, in the user and the observer, certain psychological impressions. Editor: That's fascinating, it really adds depth to what I initially saw as mere fussiness. I appreciate that tension that gives the piece an almost tragic or ironic feel to it. Curator: Exactly! It reminds us that objects carry a lot more than just their practical purpose. They speak volumes about the values and aspirations of the cultures that produced them. A pick me up indeed.