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7 mai 2021

A fine and rare pair of blue and white 'Eight Drunken Immortals' cups, Seal marks and period of Qianlong

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Lot 3621. A fine and rare pair of blue and white 'Eight Drunken Immortals' cups, Seal marks and period of Qianlong (1736-1795)9.7 cm. Estimate: 1,200,000 - 1,800,000 HKD. Lot sold: 3,276,000 HKD. Courtesy Sotheby's.

each potted resting on a countersunk base inscribed with a six-character seal mark, delicately painted around the exterior with a scene depicting one of the 'Eight Drunken Immortals', the reverse with an inscription followed by a shang seal mark, one referring to Zhang Xu and the other Jiao Sui, wood stands.

ProvenanceMarchant, London.

Note: This pair of cups represents a rare Qianlong version of the topic Yinzhong baxian ge, the Ballad on the Eight Drunken Immortals. Composed by the famous Tang poet Du Fu (712-770), the poem became a popular motif in porcelain especially during the Kangxi reign. Produced in a set of eight, but of more narrow form, Kangxi cups of this design were each painted with one of the Immortals mentioned in the poem and inscribed with the relevant verses. This pair depicts the stories of Zhang Xu (c. 675-750) and Jiao Sui, who, after drinking, could display impressive talent for writing and speaking respectively. The two inscriptions can be translated as:

Zhang Xu is a calligrapher of renown,
Three cups make him the master.
He throws off his cap, baring his pate
Unceremoniously before princes,
And wields his inspired brush, and lo!
Wreaths of cloud roll on the paper.
 
Jiao Sui, another immortal, elate
After full five jugfuls,
Is eloquent of heroic speech –
The wonder of all the feasting hall.

See blue and white prototypes of this design, but with a narrow mouth and from the Kangxi period: three sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 1st December 2009, lots 1895-7, one of them rendering Jiao Sui, illustrated in Paul Moss, Between Heaven and Earth: Secular and Divine Figural Images in Chinese Paintings and Objects, London, 1988, pl. 40, and previously sold in these rooms, 19th November 1986, lot 227; and another sold at Christie’s Amsterdam, 8th December 1998, lot 283.

Compare also an 18th century rendition of the Ballad on the Eight Drunken Immortals on a pair of chenxiangmu cups offered in this sale, lot 3659, where one is incised with the first line of the inscription about Zhang Xu and the other about Su Jin, another figure from the Eight Immortals.

Sotheby'sImportant Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 22 April 2021

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