Page 12 - Important Chinese Art Hong Kong April 2, 2019 Sotheby's

Month cups depicting seasonal flowers accompanied by Complete sets of month cups are extremely rare. A full set
pertinent two-line poems, represent a classic design of the of month cups in the Palace Museum, Bejing, is illustrated
Kangxi period. Very delicately potted, they are painted in in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the
the proper wucai palette of underglaze blue and overglaze Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 65, pl. 48;
enamels, which was devised in the Ming dynasty, but rarely another set from the Sir Percival David collection and now in
used in the Qing, when the underglaze colour was generally the British Museum, London, is published in the Illustrated
omitted. On these month cups the designs are generally Catalogue of Qing Enamelled Wares in the Percival David
sketched on the unglazed porcelain in a faint underglaze Foundation of Chinese Art, rev. ed., London, 1991, pl. 815;
blue. another in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, is included
in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo,
Slight differences in size, colours, writing styles and marks
between individual cups and different months suggest 1987, pl. 221; a further set from the Meiyintang Collection,
that even these cups may not have been produced as sets is illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the
of twelve, but perhaps issued consecutively, as the year Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, nos 1728-
evolved, to be assembled at the end. 39; and a set of blue and white cups was recently sold at
Christie’s Hong Kong, 28th November 2018, lot 2908.