HISTORY:
While my wife 'leaned' towards fine English & Irish chinaware's and porcelain, sometimes pieces from other parts of the world would catch her eye. This duo teacup & saucer from the Continent was one of those "foreign" sets that she obtained.
It met all of her criteria in that it looks great, is of high quality workmanship & materials from a very well known producer of porcelain products, Seltmann's of Germany.
The Seltmann family began porcelain operations in the early 1900's and has now evolved into one of Germany's largest producers of high quality porcelain products. As their works were located in Weiden, Bavaria at this time (pre-East/West German reunification), this gives rise to the commonly used name Seltmann-Weiden. One of the most important requirements for high quality porcelain manufacturing is the availability of Kaolin and there are large deposits just 25Km away from Weiden, in the area of Schnaittenbach.
DLAT RATING: 9/10 (Darling Look At This!)
SELTMANN (WEIDEN - WEST GERMANY) - Teacup & Saucer duo
Circa 1980's (pre-German East/West reunification after the American/Soviet occupation)
Fine porcelain (bright White base material)
Hand decorated
Design: name is unknown, often German manufacturers did not put a name of their products, sometimes a name appears but that refers to the body shape or series, not a particular design. There is a number on these pieces but again my wife believes this is not a reference to a pattern as she has seen exactly the same pattern with different numbers on the backstamp. Let's just call it a Blue & White teaset!
The artwork is a "mish-mash" in her view, all one colour (pale Blue) with some designs which appear to be flowers and other objects which appear as buildings or structures. This artwork is repeated twice on the teacup and the saucer. Around the rim of both pieces is a border pattern which again appears to be quite random.
At first my wife thought that this was transferware but when she looked more closely at the decoration, she can see "slips of the artist's brush" and has now declared that both of these pieces have been hand decorated.
Gold gilding has been applied to the outer rim of the saucer and also to the teacup scalloped rim BUT on the teacup, this gilding is much more of a dullness, similar to the rim decorating undertaken by Royal Doulton (and others) over the water in England. She does not think this is just "dull Gold" but intentionally more dull that the bright shiny Gold gilding on the saucer - perhaps it is more durable to handling? Additional to this gilding on the teacup rim is "normal" bright shiny gilding to one side of the handle, pretty smart thinking because this is the area where gilding always gets rubbed away by the "little pinky"!
Fine porcelain and of course it is translucent (you can easily see the shadow of your fingers through the porcelain when held to a light)
Circa period of 1951 ~ 1990 (based on the backstamp design) but we know for sure this teacup dates from the 1980's as my wife bought it from a German collector who stated this and you would expect they should know these things!
DIMENSIONS:
This tea duo is NOT a demitasse set but a standard full size cup and saucer
Teacup: 75mm mouth x 65mm height - slightly "high-back" designed handle
Saucer: 132mm diameter
BACKSTAMP DETAILS:
(Olive Green print under the glaze, flowing writing)
(Crown graphic)
Seltmann
Weiden
Bavaria
W.Germany
5.
(the text below is in block capitals and follows an upturning semi circle)
QUALITATS - PORZELLAN
Of course the last two words simply mean Quality Porcelain in English!
CONDITION:
USED
CLEAN
NO cracks
NO crazing
NO damage to the artwork at all
NO wear to the hand decorated craftwork
NO wear observed to the Gold gilding on either piece - very impressive condition.
Now this tea duo sits patiently waiting for a new owner to look after and use them! I must say that this design was quite a breath of fresh air for me, English china is so very "flowery" and it was a pleasure to look closely at something more geometric!
