Lot 3616. Property from the Zhuyuetang Collection. A fine and very rare famille-verte 'month' cup, Mark and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); d. 6.6 cm. Lot Sold 1,651,000 HKD (Estimate 1,200,000 - 2,000,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2023

Provenance: Collection of Diana D. Ashcroft.
Sotheby's London, 7th June 2000, lot 133.

Note:The present cup represents the fourth month and is painted with a cluster of peonies with four red blooms and one yellow, growing behind pierced blue garden rocks.

The scene is accompanied by the poem:

At dawn its beauty receives dew from a golden palm. 

In the evening the fragrance penetrates deep into the Jade Hall.

Famille-verte month cups are much more rarely found with Yongzheng than with Kangxi reign marks, and no complete set of Yongzheng cups appears to be recorded. Another cup of this date and design from the H.M. Knight Collection, sold in our London rooms, 12th May 1970, lot 100; another from the collection of Beatrice and Henry Goldschmidt was sold twice in these rooms, 20th November 1984, lot 405, and 13th November 1990, lot 17.

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 9 October 2023