Couples, Family & Motherhood

Single figures are rare here: in nearly every piece someone else is close by. An elderly couple sits in armchairs before a lit fireplace, a clock, books and a candle on the mantel. Another raises glasses at a round table — a wedding anniversary. A third takes tea facing one another, the service and a vase of flowers between them.

The younger scenes are handled differently: a youth and a girl read one letter together on a bench, two white doves beside them; a man and a woman bend over the same open book on a sofa; a gentleman offers a rose to a seated lady while a dog and a newspaper lie by the bench.

Motherhood forms its own line. A young mother with her child and a maid beside a wicker cradle where a kitten has settled; a woman showing a doll to a baby in a rose-trimmed basket.

The objects around the figures are what make these scenes readable: a polka-dot pram with gilded wheels, a spaniel underfoot, a teapot, a sheet of drawing two men lean over. They turn porcelain into a genre scene rather than a formal portrait.