First produced in 1752, the gobelet litron was a popular model at Vincennes and Sèvres throughout the eighteenth century. It was produced in large numbers in five sizes, varying in the style of the decoration and the form of the handles. The cylindrical cup received its name because of its resemblance to the litron, an old wooden cubic measure of slightly larger dimensions, used to quantify salt, grain, flour and peas. Sèvres soft-paste porcelain cup and saucer. Beau bleu ground with richly gilded decoration. The cup is painted in polychrome with an interior scene of a Turk with his concubine, and the saucer with a trophy combining attributes associated with Islam in a landscape setting. The cylindrical cup is fitted with an arched handle edged with gold lines and decorated on its outer, upper surface in faint relief with a gilded acanthus leaf, from which three husks diminishing in scale and a line of dots depend. The refined and detailed scene on the cup, painted by Charles-Nicolas Dodin (active 1754-1803), depicting a Turk with his concubine, reproduces the engraving L’Amour Asiatique by Pierre-François Basan (1723-97) after Charles Eisen (1720-78). On the saucer, the trophy combines attributes associated with Islam in a landscape setting. Text adapted from French Porcelain for English Palaces, Sèvres from the Royal Collection, London, 2009