My little prize gets a prize of her own

 Years ago, I began collecting old postcards showing steamboats that cruised the western rivers, primarily the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries. During one of my searches of a *popular on-line auction* website, I saw a listing for this cup.

I couldn't think of why the seller was letting it go, except perhaps it didn't fall within his own interests, but I was willing to make a small gamble. Thinking that other bidders would quickly put the price beyond my reach, I was surprised a week later, when I was notified that my bid had "won" and, for about $29.00, I was the new owner. 

When it arrived, I found that I was the owner of a bit of riverboat history. The cup had been hand-painted with a picture of a side-wheel steamboat, the Belfast, that plied the southern Mississippi River from about 1852 to 1857. Along with the gilt decorations the cup was inscribed to the buyer's wife: to "Mrs. Hannah F. Thornburgh from her Husband." 

While the inscription seems formal to us now, I imagine the effort needed to have the gift made possibly took the captain (or pilot, or clerk) to a shop in New Orleans that specialized in the porcelain painting of dishes and other items that decorated affluent homes of the ante-bellum era. In order to promote their skills, artists such as Rudolph Lux furnished samples of their work to be used by the passengers on the more luxurious riverboats, all of which displayed the maker's contact information.

So ... Mr. Thornburgh may have paid a visit to one of these studios and commissioned this small, loving gift for his wife. 

Entire settings of the painted china have survived to be displayed in museums, but my cup, showing signs of its use over the years, sits on top of my bookshelf and holds a few ribbons I got for swimming competitions. However, it now also holds its own ribbon, received for placing second in its category at the Indiana State Fair. Not first? Meh. There's no way it could have beaten the twelve-inch punch bowl that was decorated with hand-painted purple flowers. The bowl was beautiful, but my cup has, maybe, connections to steamboat pilot Sam Clemens and artist Rudolph Lux and stands proudly on her own.