with deep rounded sides resting on a short foot, the exterior covered in a rich ruby-red enamel, the interior and base left white, the latter inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within a double circle.

Provenance: Collection of Cheung Ling, Hong Kong.

Exhibited: Monochrome Ceramics of Ming and Ch'ing Dynasties, Min Chiu Society, The Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1977, cat. no. 20.
Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics from the Collection of the Kau Chi Society of Chinese Art, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 1981, cat. no. 135.

Note: The current cup, with its charming proportions and vibrant ruby-red enamel, is an archtypcal realisation of the Yongzheng Emperor’s aesthetic for understated refinement and the technical developments in ceramic production in the 18th century.

By virtue of the influence of Jesuit technology, pink enamel of this type was developed in China in the final years of the Kangxi period but very few Kangxi examples are known. It was not until the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods that the low-fired ruby-red enamel – which came in varying shades pink – became a more prominent feature in the repertoire of Chinese ceramics. In fact, Tang Ying (1682-1756), Superintendent of the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen, referred to such vessels as “Western red-glazed wares” in Taocheng jishi bei ji [Commemorative Stele on Ceramic Production].

Deceptively simple, the manufacture of such monochrome cups demanded the highest level of skill and meticulous precision, from not only the potting and firing but also the application of the enamel, which entailed blowing carefully through a silk gauze-covered bamboo tube on the biscuit to achieve the lightly speckled yet even effect seen on the current cup.

See a similar cup, illustrated in Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, pl. 132; another related example, with the reign mark inscribed within a single circle, from the Avery Brundage Collection and now preserved in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco, published on the Museum’s website, no. B60P2365; and a pair published in The Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1991, pl. 126.

See also a smaller ruby-pink enamelled cup also offered in this sale, lot 3102.

Sotheby's. Qing Imperial Porcelain A Private Collection, Hong Kong, 08 Oct 2019, 10:00 AM