Cup and saucer 1780 - 1790

This delicate porcelain cup and saucer were made in Germany by the Royal Porcelain Manufactory, around the late 18th century. The decoration consists of two scenes of an obelisk in a rural landscape with figures. But what does the image refer to? In the late 1700s, Germany was fragmented politically and economically, but united culturally by the phenomenon of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ or sensibility. This cultural movement valued intense emotional experience, melancholy, and sentimental friendship. It engendered a fascination with death and ruins as spaces of reflection on the transience of life. You could call it a cult of feeling. The image on this cup and saucer, with its funerary obelisk, rural idyll, and fashionably dressed figures, is a fine example of ‘Empfindsamkeit’ in visual form. It is a reminder that even the humblest domestic object can give us access to the social and intellectual world of the past if we ask the right questions and do the necessary research.