Teabowl and saucer 1725 - 1745

This teabowl and saucer was made by the Meissen Manufactory, a company which has existed since the early 18th century. The company was founded to serve the royalty of the time, imbuing pieces like these with a sense of luxury and status. The decoration on the teabowl and saucer is rooted in the cultural exchange between Europe and Asia. Motifs such as stylized flowers, birds in flight, and garden scenes, were typical of the Chinoiserie style. This aesthetic allowed Europeans to project their fantasies and misunderstandings of other cultures onto decorative arts. These scenes romanticized the "exotic" East while completely ignoring the lived realities of those cultures. The porcelain itself speaks to the high demand for Chinese goods in Europe, and the desire to replicate what were then considered rare and precious materials. Consider how the intimacy of a tea setting is interwoven with larger stories of global exchange and power dynamics.