Vintage Royal Bone China Yellow Roses Mug – Collector's Series, Botanical Rose Print, Green and Gilt Rim, Slender Shape, Thailand, 1990s

A single spray of yellow roses drawn the botanical way — full blooms, a bud, dark leaves spreading across white like a page from an old plant book — inside a thin border of green and gold at the rim. It is the kind of clean, one-flower design that English bone china does so well: a single subject, plenty of white around it, easy to live with.

The base reads Collector's series of four designs · Roses · Royal Bone China · Fine Bone China · Thailand — the yellow-rose one from a set of four. It's honest to say what this is: a genuine bone-china mug (hold it up and it glows), made in Thailand, which is a real centre of Southeast Asian bone-china production — pretty and everyday rather than an old English factory piece. Priced accordingly.

A note for the curious: yellow roses have switched sides. In Victorian flower language they meant jealousy; only in the last century did they come to stand for friendship and warmth. The same flower, read the opposite way a hundred years apart.

Slender and straight-sided, about 4 inches. It pairs with the shop's other Royal Bone China roses for anyone building the set.