Imperial Porcelain – A Private Collection
Imperial Porcelain – A Private Collection
A RARE YELLOW-GROUND BLUE AND WHITE HANDLED CUP, YONGZHENG MARK AND PERIOD | 清雍正 黄地青花仙芝花卉紋雙耳盃 《大清雍正年製》款
Auction Closed
November 4, 11:12 AM GMT
Estimate
80,000 - 120,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
A RARE YELLOW-GROUND BLUE AND WHITE HANDLED CUP
YONGZHENG MARK AND PERIOD
清雍正 黄地青花仙芝花卉紋雙耳盃 《大清雍正年製》款
the rounded sides rising from a short foot to a lobed rim, flanked by a pair of butterfly-shaped handles, the interior painted with a central floral medallion radiating with two rows of petal lappets, each enclosing a lingzhi or floral spray, the exterior similarly decorated, all reserved on a bright lemon-yellow ground, the base centred with a six-character mark within a double-circle in underglaze blue
Width across handle 9.8 cm, 3⅞ in.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th April 1993, lot 240.
香港蘇富比1993年4月27日，編號240
This exquisite cup with its crisp butterfly handles and tiers of lingzhi and floral blooms, belongs to a select group of wares from Yongzheng period that celebrate both tradition and innovation. While the form and design of this cup closely follow prototypes of the early Ming period (1368-1644), the brilliant lemon-yellow ground adds a sense of contemporaneity to the piece. This stunning glaze was an innovation of the Yongzheng period that was first introduced to the potters at Jingdezhen in 1728 when Tang Ying (1682-1756) was appointed resident manager of the Imperial kilns.
Cups of this form and with a lemon-yellow ground are unusual, although a closely related cup was sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 29th April 1997, lot 703. See also two larger cups sold in these rooms, the first, 9th June 1992, lot 299, and again 15th May 2013, lot 172, and the second, 10th June 1997, lot 100. Compare also a cup of this design but lacking the lemon-yellow ground, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, published on the Museum’s website, accession no. 00154077; and another illustrated in Mayuyama. Seventy Years, Tokyo, 1976, vol. I, pl. 1063.
For the prototype of this design, see a Xuande (r. 1426-1435) mark and period cup recovered from the waste heaps of the imperial kiln factory in Jingdezhen, and included in the exhibition Imperial Porcelain of the Yongle and Xuande Periods Excavated from the Site of the Ming Imperial Factory at Jingdezhen, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1989, cat. no. 47.