Trembleuse

set of 1735–1740, small porcelain tray holding matching cup and water glass, both with gold galleries They allowed people with a weak grip or a medical condition involving shaking or trembling hands to drink a beverage, initially tea or hot chocolate; 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. There are two sets of gold handles for the cups, but these are in fact part of the galleries. 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. A matching porcelain tray of this sort is called a présentoire. The name "trembleuse", meaning "one (female) who trembles", is usually held to be 19th-century or later: 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", although "trembleuse" is often preferred today (especially by Americans). The saucer can be called a "chocolate-stand. 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. ==Origins==

Such saucers with galleries had been common in Chinese ceramics for centuries, for example in Ru ware from the Song dynasty, where they are most often called "cup stands". In many Chinese examples the well in the stand is open at the bottom. As tea-drinking became popular in the Ottoman Empire the zarf cup-holder, somewhat like a large eggcup, developed, mostly to hold small Chinese export porcelain tea-bowls. Whether the Chinese or Turkish forms played a role in the emergence of the trembleuse is unclear. In Europe the trembleuse originated in Paris in the 1690s, and were originally associated with drinking chocolate rather than tea or coffee, perhaps more influenced by the Hispanic mancerina (see below) than the Asia types. ==Mancerina==

A Spanish type, generally designed for a smaller handleless cup, and perhaps the original Western form, was introduced by, or at least named after, Pedro de Toledo, 1st Marquis of Mancera in the mid-17th century, when he was Viceroy of Peru. It was mostly used for drinking chocolate. In South America, the Spanish colonists took over the indigenous way of drinking chocolate: hot, strong and bitter, in very small cups either made from dried gourds, or replicating this shape in pottery. These cups lacked a stable base, which did not suit the Spanish, who therefore invented the galleried saucer to hold them. File:Pair of trembleuse stands MET 193700.jpg|Pair, silver-gilt stands by Paul de Lamerie, London, cups by Doccia porcelain, Florence File:Trembleuse saucer, c. 1725, Du Paquier factory, hard-paste porcelain, overglaze enamels, gilding - Gardiner Museum, Toronto - DSC00960.JPG|Saucer with gallery, Vienna, Du Paquier period File:The Chocolate girl by Liotard, details-1.jpg|Detail of the tray with frothing cup of drinking chocolate from The Chocolate Girl by Jean-Étienne Liotard, c. 1743 File:Joueurs de cartes, PPO2044(1).jpg|Saucer with well, Italian faience, mid-18th century File:Trembleuse Cup and Saucer (two of a pair) LACMA 55.36.41a-b.jpg|Chinese export porcelain, after 1750 File:Macerina-Barcelona-02.jpg|Spanish mancerina without cup File:Tasses à chocolat françaises du XVIIIe siècle dites Trembleuses, au Musée du chocolat de Paris.jpg|A variety of French 18th-century trembleuses File:Kaiserliche Manufaktur Trembleuse 1800.JPG|Vienna cup with low gallery, c. 1800 ==Notes==