The center painted with a peony sprig encircled by a raised collar to support the cup and encircled by a continuous chrysanthemum scroll bearing six blossoms, with eight detached flower sprigs in the petal-molded well and a band of classic scroll on the correspondingly barbed, everted rim, which is painted on the outer edge with a band of key fret, the petal-molded exterior painted with petal lappets, the base unglazed, fitted box and stand.

Provenance: Edward T. Chow Collection.
Mathias Komor, New York, December 1951. 

Literature: H. D. Ling and E. T. Chow, Complete Collection of Ming Dynasty Kingtehchen Porcelain from the Hall of Disciplined Learning, in two volumes, Hong Kong, 1950, vol. I, no. 5, p. 5. 

Exhibited: Neolithic to Ming, Chinese Objects - The Myron S. Falk Collection, Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith College Museum of Art, 1957, no. 32. 

Note: A blue and white cup stand of the same size and exactly the same decoration was excavated in 1994 from the site of the imperial kiln at Zhushan, Jingdezhen; see Jingdezhen chutu Yuan Ming guanyao ciqi, Beijing, 1999, p. 81, no. 18. A blue and white Hongwu cup stand of similar shape and decoration, but with a formal flower made up of ruyiheads in the central recess, is illustrated by Geng Baochang in Ming Qing ciqi jianding, Beijing, 1993, p. 13, fig. 14. A similar example in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, p. 244, no. 225, and another is illustrated in Serene Pleasure - The Jinglexuan Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Seattle Art Museum, 2001, p. 66, no. 60. The development of underglaze-blue and underglaze-red wares was closely linked in the late Hongwu period. An underglaze-red cup stand from the Avery Brundage Collection, of similar form and decoration to the Falk underglaze-blue cup stand, is illustrated in Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland Museum of Art, 1968, no, 176. The Brundage cup stand, like the Falk example, has a peony blossom in the central recess. An underglaze-red cup stand with almost the same decoration as the Falk example, except that the central motif is a floral medallion composed of ruyi heads, is in the collection of the Shanghai Museum and is illustrated by Wang Qingzheng, Underglaze Blue and Red, Hong Kong, 1993, p. 69, no. 41. It is also interesting to note that a late 14th century underglaze-red- decorated cup stand of the same size and almost identical decoration, but painted in reserve, was excavated from a temple site in Jiangsu province, see Zhongguo meishu quanji, Gongyi meishu bian 3, Taoci (xia), Shanghai, 1988, p. 34, no. 35.