Bee White & Gold Porcelain Large Tea Cup & Saucer

Description

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 sizes and shapes, I've decided that this is my favorite. I consider this cup to be the perfect size holding approximately 14 oz., not too big or too small. It measures 3" in height and 4.25" in dia., wide enough to gradually cool down your hot drink. The saucer is approximately 5" in dia. and 1" in height. These pieces are wheel thrown and made of a mid-fire porcelain. The interior of the cup features a bee screen printed and hand detailed in black underglaze before the first firing. Each piece is then dipped in clear glaze and fired a second time. Finally, the edges of the cup and saucer are brushed with gold overglaze and fired a third time. There is so much wonderful symbolism and myth connected to bees. They are associated with immortality, resurrection and fertility. The facts about bees are even more fascinating than the myths: the Queen bee is the sole mother of all the bees in the hive; all worker bees are female, and male bees, called drones, are only birthed when the Queen needs them to fertilize her eggs; the Queen is often the only member of the hive to survive the Winter, and she rebuilds the hive in the Spring. All my pieces are food safe and areas with metallic overglaze can come into contact with food and drink, but this piece is NOT microwave safe. As with any metallic surface, they could cause sparks. Avoid hard scrubbing when washing because of the possibility of scraping off the thin layer of gold overglaze, it is best to treat these pieces as you would fine china. Although gold overglaze will take repeated washings in a dishwasher, it will eventually wear away, so please hand wash. This design is part of an open edition collection. As with most handmade work slight variations are natural.