Rare Set Four Antique 1860's Bawo & Dotter Limoges Gilt Painted Coffee Tea Cups

  
Rare and lovely set of four antique coffee / tea cups and saucers with square handles by Bawo & Dotter, made in Limoges, France. Beautiful handpainted and gilt-encrusted botanical tableau with blooms, vines, and a fence, accompanied by gilt banding to edges and handles of both cups and saucers. Interior rims of cups with gilt pattern. Cups measure 2.25" high and recessed saucers are 5.5" in diameter. Martial mark on bottom dates these to the 1860's, the earliest period of Bawo & Dotter, before the introduction of their Elite Works line. Cups and saucers in very good condition overall - no cracks or stains, encrusted gilt patterning still intact and gleaming, a few saucers with teeny fleabite chips to underside of rims, one cups with teeny fleabite chip to rim, another cup with teeny fleabite chip to base, secondary gilt banding and gilt patterning of thin floral strands and to interior rims of cups shows some rubbing and fading.