Page 244 - Decorative Arts, Part II: Far Eastern Ceramics and Paintings, Persian and Indian Rugs and Carpets

(left): foot-ring and reignmark on base of 1972.43.41

(right): foot-ring and reignmark on base of 1972.43.42

1972.43.41-42 (C-596-595)
Pair of Cups

Qing dynasty, Yongzheng period (1723-1735) HESE THINLY POTTED CUPS represent an attempt to
Porcelain with underglaze blue and overglaze doucai Timitate a well-known ceramic type of the Ming-
enamel decoration, dynasty Chenghua period (1465-1487). l Each cup is
l3
1972.4341: 4.6 X 7.6 (l /i6 X 3) painted with underglaze blue, covered with a colorless
1972.43.42: 4.7 X 7.6 (l% X 3) glaze, then decorated with overglaze red, green, yellow,
Harry G. Steele Collection, Gift of Grace C. Steele and aubergine enamels. The grape and melon vine with
bamboo design is identical on the two cups. 2
The eighteenth-century dating of these cups is estab-
INSCRIPTIONS lished on the basis of the brilliant white color of the body
Spuriously inscribed in standard script on the base in under-
glaze blue in two columns of three characters each: Da Ming and glaze, and the enamel pigments, which are lighter in
Chenghua nian zhi [made in the Chenghua reign of the great tone than those of Chenghua prototypes. In addition, the
Ming dynasty] rims are slightly more everted than those of the
Chenghua prototypes. 3
TECHNICAL NOTES SL
The narrow foot-rings are rounded, and the bases recessed and
glazed over the spurious Chenghua marks. There is a chip on NOTES
the rim of 1972.43.41.
1. For a Chenghua-period prototype, see Min-ji meihin zuroku,
3 vols. (Tokyo, 1977), 2: pi. 50.
PROVENANCE
(Yamanaka, Chicago); sold to Harry G. Steele [1881-1941], 2. For similar examples, see Jenyns 1951, pi. 24.1.
Pasadena; his widow, Grace C. Steele. 3. See Scott et al. 1989, no. 42.

228 D E C O R A T I V E A R T S