2-748-080 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Wine Cup with Children at Play, 1465-87. This delicate wine cup, only two inches high, exhibits free, spontaneous drawing as well as perfect compositional balance over its small surface area. The motifs were outlined with cobalt blue; the piece was then glazed and fired in the normal way for making the blue-and-white ware. After firing, the outline painting was completed with coloured enamels over the glaze. The piece was fired the second time. The pictorial decoration is refined and complicated; the porcelain body is of exceptionally high quality and is thin, translucent, and light in weight.