Art period: Regency
Maker: Miles Mason
This beautiful Miles Mason coffee can and saucer from around 1810 is hand-painted with an unusual Sèvres-style pattern. The dark-blue ground is decorated with gilt scrolls. The four reserves on the saucer, and three on the outside of the can, are painted with brightly coloured sprays of summer flowers, enclosed in shell-shaped, gilt-scroll cartouches.
There are no identifying marks but the handle shape conforms to Miles Mason. See plate 265 on Page 170 of Staffordshire Porcelain edited by Geoffrey Godden for an identically shaped Miles Mason coffee can, c. 1810, also coffee cans passim in Miles Mason Porcelain: A Guide to Patterns and Shapes by Deborah Skinner and Velma Young.
Condition The saucer is near perfect; just a few light surface scratches visible on the well, and a tiny patch of rubbed gilding on the rim edge. The coffee can has a 4-cm long hairline running down from the top rim, and some staining to the base.
Coffee can Height: 6.2 cm; Diameter: 6.6 cm; Width across handle: 8.2 cm
Saucer Diameter: 13.8 cm
Net weight: 185 g
Medium: Bone china (porcelain)
Origin: Minerva Works, Lane Delph (Fenton), Staffordshire Potteries, England