Lot 22. A rare blue and white  'peach' cup, Ming Dynasty, Yongle period; 11 cm., 4 3/8 in. Estimate 10,000,000-12,000,000 HKD. Lot sold 11,860,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

the rounded sides rising to an everted rim, naturalistically painted on the exterior in soft tones of cobalt with two large peach sprays, each bearing two ripe fruits with finely shaded skin, a blossom and a small bud, the interior centred with a lingzhi spray in a medallion, and bordered on the rim with a 'classic' scroll

PROVENANCE: Collection of George Eumorfopoulos (1863-1939) (one of a pair).

Collection of Major Lindsay F. Hay (1891-1946) (one of a pair).

Sotheby's London, 25th June 1946, lot 42 (one of a pair).

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Clark (died 1976) (one of a pair).

Spink & Son, London.

Collection of Frederick Knight.

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 18th May 1982, lot 25.

EXHIBITED: Blue and White Porcelain from the Collection of Mrs. Alfred Clark, Spink & Son, London, 1974, cat. no. 5.

Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, The British Museum, London, 1994.

LITERATURE: Margaret Medley, 'Imperial Patronage and Early Ming Porcelain', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 55, 1990-91, p. 39, pl. 15.

Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 2, no. 667.

NOTE: This exquisite cup and its few companion pieces are among the most delicately potted and most sensitively painted imperial porcelains of the Yongle period, when many large and sturdy vessels were made to be sent abroad. The porcelain itself is of superb smooth and silky texture; the painterly style, using different shades of blue to suggest volume, is extremely elegant; and although fruit designs became very popular for blue-and-white porcelain in the Yongle reign, the peach motif was rarely used in this enchanting way, as a freely executed, lively and unmannered nature study.

This present cup entered the collections of George Eumorfopoulos, Lindsay F. Hay and Alfred Clark as one of a pair and was sold in 1946 in our London rooms together with its companion cup. Jim Kiddell, head of Sotheby's Chinese department at the time, commented this lot in his personal records of important Ming porcelains he had sold with the brief remark "small in size but perfect technique." The companion cup, subsequently in the collection of T.Y. Chao and included in the exhibition Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1978, cat. no. 6, was sold again in these rooms, 19th May 1987, lot 226.

Three other cups of this rare type are known, one in the British Museum from the collection of Harry Oppenheim, London, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, no. 3: 26; one in the Leventritt collection, included in the exhibition 'Ming Blue-and-White. An Exhibition of Blue-Decorated Porcelain of the Ming Dynasty', Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum Bulletin, vol. XLIV, no. 223, Autumn 1949, pls. 84 and 85; and one from the Edward T. Chow collection, sold three times in these rooms, 19th May 1981, lot 401; 17th May 1988, lot 20; and 7th October 2006, lot 903.

A fragmentary example re-assembled from sherds recovered from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kiln site at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, was included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming chu guanyao ciqi / Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 77, where also other cups of this form and size have come to light, decorated with various other flower designs, cat. nos. 78-82.

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains. Hong Kong | 04 Apr 2012, 10:15 AM