Vintage Paragon Yellow Cabinet Teacup & Saucer – Reproduction of Queen Mary's Service, Rose Swag, Gilt Handle, Bone China England, 1940s

Read the mark before you decide what this is. It does not say "by appointment" — it says Reproduction of Service made for Her Majesty Queen Mary. That is a different thing entirely: not a royal warrant naming Paragon as a supplier, but a retail pattern reproducing a china service Paragon had actually made for the Queen. The original went to Queen Mary — George V's consort — around 1913, early in her reign; later the firm sold the colourway to everyone, and marked it honestly as the copy it was.

It is a clever piece of borrowed glamour, because Queen Mary was the most famous collector of her age — a woman whose eye for porcelain was so well known that hostesses grew nervous when she admired their cabinets. "Made for Queen Mary" was worth printing on the bottom of a cup.

And it is a proper cabinet cup: a broad band of canary yellow inside the cup and across the saucer, a ring of gilt vine on white, and hand-coloured flowers — a rose bouquet in the centre, a swag of little roses looped around the outside of the cup (a garland motif older than porcelain itself, borrowed from Roman temple carving). The small red F.D's under the foot is the paintress's tally — the mark of a piece coloured by hand, not printed.

Made to be looked at rather than used. Marked Paragon Fine Bone China, Made in England.