Vintage Eximious Queen Elizabeth II Loving Cup – Royal Succession Table, Ten Monarchs, Heavy Gilt Twin Handled, Golden Jubilee England 2003

A twin-handled loving cup for the fiftieth anniversary of the coronation, its grounds of red and blue laid beneath a fine gold lattice, the lion and unicorn in a medallion at the front, and the rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock set into panels at either side.

Turn it round and the ceremony gives way to something quieter. Within a blue and gold frame is a table of the royal succession, two hundred and fifty years of it, opening with George II in 1727 and running down through George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V and George VI to Elizabeth II. Reading the column, the eye catches on Edward VIII 1936 — one date and then nothing, since he abdicated inside the year and was never crowned. Commemorative china seldom carries information of this sort, and more seldom still does it let a constitutional crisis sit on the page as a blank space.

The table explains the pair of dates as well. Elizabeth II is entered at 1952, the year of her accession, while the cup itself is dated 1953 to 2003, marking fifty years since the crowning — the seam along which British royal wares divide again and again.

Loving cups were always the grander end of a commemorative issue, made in smaller numbers than the mugs and plates that went out beside them. This one came from Eximious, the London gift house, rather than from a pottery's own catalogue, which narrows the run further, since commissions of that kind were made once and not reprinted. The succession table earns it a second audience besides, among those who collect the monarchy as a sequence rather than a single reign. A handsome thing to keep, and a rather grand one to give.