Set of five lustre fired earthenware cups and saucers, circa 1950-1951, each hand thrown and different from one another. The artist perfected this deep copper lustre glaze with these cups in this very year in collaboration with Frank Noyes in Beatrice Wood's studio.

"By 1950 Beatrice was beginning to create extraordinary luster surfaces. In fact, the works were so unique that there was no real comparison that can be made within the ceramic tradition. In aesthetic terms the work resembled most closely the exquisite glass antiquities of Egypt with their lustrous patina (the result of centuries of being buried) ... A luster glaze is a surface which reflects light waves to produce a diffraction effect, resulting from the presence of metallic salts on the glaze surface. This is brought about through reduction firing, a technique in which the kiln is denied oxygen during a part of the firing process." Garth Clark, quoted in I Shock Myself, Beatrice Wood, 1985 (2018 edition), p.165

A comparable set of cups in a dark green glaze are held in the collection of the Minneapolis Museum of Art