Ligne Noire Coffee Cup & Saucer

The Ligne Noire Coffee Cup and Saucer is fine bone porcelain marked with a single black line, measuring 13cm across. The line is the only decoration and it is enough. Part of the Ligne collection.

A single drawn line is a confident piece of design. There is nowhere to hide with decoration this minimal, so the form of the cup and the quality of the porcelain have to carry it, and here they do.

Coffee cups get held more than any other piece of tableware, which makes weight and balance more important than pattern. Fine bone porcelain is thin and light in the hand, warming quickly with the coffee rather than drawing heat out of it. The black line reads clearly against the white without making the cup formal, so it works at a weekday breakfast as readily as with guests. The saucer catches the drips and gives a spoon somewhere to go.