Product Code Database
A trembleuse, also known as a tasse trembleuse or chocolate cup,Savage and Newman, 76 is a pottery drinking cup and saucer with the saucer given a raised holding area, called the "gallery", in which the cup sits more securely than in the normal style. The saucer therefore becomes more of a cup holder than the normal shallow near-plate.
A different designalso often called a trembleuse, or gobelet et soucoupe enfoncé in 18th-century Sèvres catalogueshas a socket or well below the main plane of the saucer, in which the cup sits, achieving a similar effect of stability. The main plane of the saucer is raised high.Hillier, 63Savage and Newman, 298 In both types, the cups are mostly in porcelain (or bone china) with some in high quality earthenware such as creamware. The saucers normally match the cups, but are sometimes in silver, or even partly in gold.
A lavish Vienna porcelain set of 1735-40 has a small porcelain tray holding matching cup and water glass, both with gold galleries and covers. Between the two cups is a vertical gold shell shape to hold a spoon, set in a plaque of lapis lazuli. This is described as an "ensemble for chocolate" by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Ensemble for chocolate" There are two sets of gold handles for the cups, but these are in fact part of the galleries.Met photo with the cups taken away
A well-known pastel, The Chocolate Girl ( Das Schokoladenmadchen) by Jean-Étienne Liotard (now Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, c. 1743) shows a young maid carrying a tray with a Meissen trembleuse with a silver gallery, and a plain glass of water.Hillier, 63, plate 30 A matching porcelain tray of this sort is called a présentoire.Savage and Newman, 232
The name "trembleuse", meaning "one (female) who trembles", is usually held to be 19th-century or later: in their 18th-century heyday they were called a variety of names by various manufacturers. Sèvres used the term Gobelet et soucoupe enfoncé for a saucer with a well in catalogues from 1759, also tasses à toilette et sou-coupes. Meissen used Schokoladetassen ("chocolate cup"), Vienna Schokoladebecher mit Einsatztasse, and Höchst Porcelain Kronenschale ("crowned cup").
However, the Sèvres records of the 1750s and 1760s refer to a " Gobelet et soucoupe trembleuse", which according to Adrian Sassoon is thought to refer to a different rare type of "deep saucer" that "has three large concave lobes within its high sides, with divisions that form buttresses to hold the cup in the center".Adrian Sassoon, Vincennes and Sèvres Porcelain: Catalogue of the Collections, p. 98, 1991, J. Paul Getty Museum, online; the V&A example he mentions is this one
Many of the most famous porcelain manufacturers, such as Sèvres and Vienna, produced trembleuses, but they were not often made by English manufacturers in the 18th century. When they were they were called "chocolate cups",Savage and Newman, 75 although "trembleuse" is often preferred today (especially by Americans). The saucer can be called a "chocolate-stand. However, cups with two handles and a cover are often called a "chocolate cup", when the saucer is the conventional type used by teacups. "Chocolate Cup, Cover and Saucer", Victoria & Albert Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has a relatively unusual pair of cups, the saucers and galleries entirely in silver-gilt by the leading London silversmith Paul de Lamerie from 1713 to 1714, while the handleless cups are Italian Doccia porcelain. "Pair of trembleuse stands", Metropolitan Museum of Art
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