Two-Handled Covered Cup and Saucer (gobelet ‘à lait’ et soucoupe)

This covered, bucket-shaped cup and saucer would have primarily be used to drink hot and cold milk drinks that were prescribed to remedy fever, melancholy, and the effects of drinking too much alcohol. Warmed bread could be served in the deep saucer or, if the beverage was too warm, the milk cocktail could be poured into the saucer to cool. The two reserves, or areas reserved for imagery, on the cup are filled with trophies of pastoral life, including a basket of eggs, a sheaf of grain, cotton on a distaff, and a sunhat. On the cup’s lid and saucer, one can identify instruments of the hunt, including: arrows, quivers, trumpets, swords, and even a lyre. Gilded frames and vegetal motifs surround each reserve and border the edges the cup, lid, and saucer, giving them a jewel-like appearance that would glimmer in the candlelit interiors of the eighteenth century.

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