Lot 3106. A fine and rare blue and white cupstand, Ming Dynasty, Hongwu Period. 20.3 cm., 8 in. Estimate 800,000 — 1,200,000 HKD. Lot sold 2,200,000 HKD. Photo: Sotheby's.

of lobed octafoil form, the shallow rounded sides rising to a barbed everted rim divided into eight bracket foliations, molded on the interior with a central raised ring and around the exterior with crisp radiating ridges dividing the lobes, finely decorated overall in soft tones of underglaze-blue accented with 'heaping and piling', the slightly recessed centre with a leafy peony spray and attendant bud, surrounded by six chrysanthemum wreathed in a foliate stem and eight varieties of lotus sprigs around the cavetto, the rim detailed with a 'classic' scroll and key-fret on its outer edge, the central ring picked out with pendent lappets, the exterior painted with petal lappets on each lobe, the recessed base and short footring left unglazed and burnt to pale orange. 

Provenance: Associated Peninsula auction, Hong Kong, 1990s, no. 12 (label). 

A very similar cupstand from the collections of Jean-Pierre Dubosc and Mr. and Mrs. John A. Pope, was included in the exhibition Mostra d’Arte Cinese/Exhibition of Chinese Art, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1954, cat. no. 611; another from the collection of Dr. H.P. Stevens, was sold in our London rooms, 28th June 1966, lot 70; one with a lotus spray in the centre, in the Capital Museum, Beijing, is published in Shoudu Bowuguan cang ci xuan [Selection of porcelains from the Capital Museum], Beijing, 1991, pl. 86; and a fourth example from the Edward T. Chow and Myron S. Falk collections, now in the Meyintang collection, is published in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, bk. I, London, 2010, pl. 1627. 

A cupstand of this type with a lotus scroll replacing the chrysanthemums was excavated from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns at Zhushan, Jingdezhen, and included in the exhibition Jingdezhen chutu Ming chu guanyao ciqi/Imperial Hongwu and Yongle Porcelain Excavated at Jingdezhen, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 17.