Small cup with a perforated wall, Late Ming Dynasty, 1st quarter 17th century, Transition period. Porcelain with underglaze blue and enamel colors and decorative gilding. Height: 7.5 cm. Diameter: 6.5 cm (mouth). Ident.Nr. 6532. Formerly art the Electors of Brandenburg. Collection:  Museum of Asian Art. Photo: Petra Stüning © Photo: Museum of Asian Art, the National Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage

The little cup is at the high, exhibited foot towering, washed by waves and spray rocks. As a Daoist "island of the blessed" the cuppa rises above the foot. The average home decor zone of the wall shows through a star-like pattern perforated base six medallions with fine aufmodellierten reliefs and in addition to delicate characters with happiness currencies. In the illustrated central medallion of the God of Longevity is shown between clouds next to the filamentary issued in relief character shou ("Long Life"). The characters in the subsequent medallions are open work. Read Continuous they are: "Ten thousand times lucky ten thousand times (high) income, tens of thousands of Long Life." The reliefs bats, deer, dragons, cicadas and others and bear witness to the preference of the popular visual language to use ambiguous Wortlautungen. Thus, the appearance of bats (Ch. Fu) in one of the medallions on the identical word for happiness (Ch. Fu), which appears as a character in the center.