Böttger tea bowl and saucer

Code: C1000

Decorated with Inuit and North American Indians 

Circa 1722-23

Hard-paste porcelain

Height of bowl: 2 7/8 in. (7.3 cm.)

Diameter of saucer: 5 in. (12.7 cm.)

This extremely rare Böttger tea bowl and saucer represents the earliest known painted scenes of North America's indigenous people on porcelain. It forms part of a tea service, of which a few other pieces are known, which may have been entirely decorated with the same subject matter. It reveals much about the fascination with distant lands and culture that was so prevalent in eigtheenth century Europe.