A special little Victorian cup for tea cup Tuesday

Hello my tea cup friends.I've got a special little treat for you today. I found this lovely little Victorian tea cup in a tiny antique store in the bucolic Cotswold town of Burford.It's hand painted with very quirky little brush strokes and only has a number, 7003, painted on the bottom of the cup but nothing else to indicate any maker. It's a little pockmarked with time but charming, don't you think?I also wanted to show you this little thing. I wondered and wondered about it, because it looks like a tea pot without the spout, and it revealed itself to be a biscuit tin!I think it's later than Victorian, probably Art Deco-ish, but look at the lovely hand painted scenes on it. :)And now I want to tell you what I found out about this little cup. Do you see how deep the saucer is?That's on purpose.When you poured a very hot cup of tea to a Victorian lady...It was perfectly socially polite for the fine lady to pour the contents of her cup into her cooler saucer and drink it from there!And the saucer holds the complete cup worth of hot tea.And here are a couple of images of "The Merchant's Wife" two paintings by the Victorian Russian artist Boris Kusodiev of ladies sipping their tea from the saucer.Who knew! :)Linking very quickly with Teri and Martha and Sandi and Bernideen with a wholehearted promise that I shall visit everyone tomorrow because tonight we have severe thunderstorms and I must get off my computer. (By the way, tomorrow English time is still Tuesday North American time :) )