This tea cup and saucer is just right for your morning coffee or tea, but it's lovely enough for your evening dessert too. After making many different size and shape cups, I've decided that this is my favorite. I consider this cup to be the perfect size holding 14 oz., not too big or too small. It measures 2.75" in height and 4.5" in dia., wide enough to gradually cool down your hot drink. The saucer is 5" in dia. and 1" in height, I will sell the cup without the saucer if your into mugs more than tea cups, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IN NOTE TO SELLER if you'd prefer the cup without the saucer.
These pieces are wheel thrown and made of a mid-fire porcelain. The inside of the cup is glazed clear and the outside of the cup and the saucer are glazed a transparent dark amber brown. A stag beetle sits on the inside of the cup and two are featured on each side, all are hand painted in black underglaze using a graphite transfer process.
The Beetle and Bug collection of pottery features designs inspired by some of my favorite insects. Stag beetles derive their name from their dramatic appearance; the males have mandibles that resemble the antlers of stag deer. Also like stag deer who fight each other for females, male stag beetles will use their jaws to wrestle each other for certain mating sites. Those mandibles may be intimidating, but in use they are actually too weak to be harmful. Stag beetles are also fairly clumsy in flight; they fly slowly, lumbering close to the ground and are fairly easy to catch. In ancient Italy children at play would capture stag beetles, attach them to a length of thread and fly them like a kite! Despite the menacing appearance of the male stag beetle, they're fairly docile bugs. However the females are not to be messed with, their smaller mandibles can inflict a painful bite.
All my pieces are food, microwave and dishwasher safe, though they prefer hand washing.
This design is part of an open edition collection. The piece pictured may not necessarily be the piece you receive. As with most handmade work slight variations are natural.
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