Schneeballen Lidded Cup & Saucer

This is a fun cup and saucer made by Meissen in the early to mid 19th century. It is decorated with one of the fanciest and highly collectible designs on any Meissen piece - the famous Schneeballen design after the Schneeballen flower. While this translated means snowballs it is actually name after a kind of flower blossom that is very neat looking I think it is called the snowball bush in English. The tiny blossoms form a round ball and smell nice, too. The tiny flowers that make up the ball is were this design comes from. This version here is the lidless version. It never had a lid or it would ahve the slightly rough inside edge to the cup which it does not. The whole cup outside as well as the saucer underside rim are covered with the small blossoms then on top of that you have rose blossoms and in the case of the cup canaries, the rims have a gold trim and the top of the saucer has the scattered small flowers. A superb example of this style! A bit overloaded for my taste but apparently I am in the minority with that as people go crazy for these pieces. The main bodies of the cup and saucer are in perfect condition without any cracks, chips, wear, etc. The one bird is missing a piece of its tail, the other one is perfect as well. The snowball blossoms look to be in good shape as well but there is one on the saucer that has a tiny chip you can find if you look for it. The flowers and leaves that are applied on top of the white blossoms have some damage and that is always the case. There are four chipped leaves on the cup, some chipping to some flowers only one of which is a decent size the rest are very minor nibbles. 8 of the tiny vines connecting the larger vines to the leaves/ or flwoers are missing. The saucer bottom is in great shape as well with only a few minor nibbles to the flowers and no chipped leaves but 5 little vine pieces are missing. Both pieces are marked with the underglaze blue crossed swords mark underneath which look to be from the late Schmierzeit which explains why the one on the saucer is smudged a bit. Quite typical of this period and it is why it is named this way. Impressed numbers on both piece though it is very faint on the cup. The cup is 2.375 inches tall and 2.5 inches in diameter (not including all the decoration on the outside!). The saucer is a bit over 1.25 inches tall and 5.125 inches in diameter. Please email me for more information or other pictures.