Lot 14. Property from an important European collection. A rare and exquisite pair of rose-pink enamelled cups, Marks and period of Yongzheng (1723-1735); d. 8.4 cm. Lot Sold 3,302,000 HKD (Estimate 2,500,000 - 3,500,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2024

each finely potted with gently flaring sides supported by a short foot, the exterior enamelled in an attractive peach-blossom pink, the interior and base left white, the latter inscribed with a six-character reign mark within a double circle in underglaze blue.

Provenance: Acquired from Edward T. Chow (1910-80) in the late 1960s.

Note: With their simple forms and subdued enamel, the present pair of cups is an archetypal realisation of the Yongzheng Emperor's aesthetic for understated refinement and the technical developments in ceramic production in the 18th century. Delicately potted, the cups are perfectly proportioned with gently flaring sides enamelled with an irresistible shade of peach-petal pink. 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 early examples are known. It was not until the Yongzheng and Qianlong periods that the low-fired ruby-red enamel – which came in varying shades of pink – became a more prominent feature in the repertoire of Chinese ceramics.

Deceptively simple, producing such monochrome cups demanded the highest level of skill and meticulous precision, from potting to firing. The enamel colour was derived from colloidal gold combined with an admixture of opaque white lead arsenate. It entailed blowing carefully through a silk gauze-covered bamboo tube on the biscuit before its second firing at a lower temperature (approx. 800 °C), resulting in a mottled effect as seen on the present cups. 

A few cups of this form, colour, and size, yet bearing the reign marks of Kangxi, are recorded; examples from the Yongzheng period, however, appear to be extremely rare. A Kangxi pair is in the British Museum, no. 1945,1016.8-9, published in Shelagh J. Vainker, Chinese Pottery and Porcelain, London, 1991, pl. 158; a single one in the Baur Collection, Geneva, is illustrated in John Ayers, The Baur Collection Geneva: Chinese Ceramics, Geneva, 1968-74, vol. III, pl. A 482; and another cup, formerly in Mossette Levaur Keyzer-André and Meiyintang collections, was sold in these rooms, 9th October 2012, lot 1. For Yongzheng ruby-pink vessels of this form and size but further adorned in famille-rose with berries and seeds inside, see a pair of cups sold in these rooms, 6th April 2016, lot 3018.

Two larger bowls with everted rims, seemingly decorated in a creamy pink tone, are in the Grandidier Collection at Musée national des arts asiatiques-Guimet, Paris, nos G 1642 and G 2395. Compare another pair of Yongzheng ruby-pink cups decorated with lychee in famille-rose in this collection, lot 20. Many test pieces with blown-on ruby-red enamel from the Kangxi period are at present on view at the Palace Museum, Taipei, in the exhibition Story of an Artistic Style. The Imperial Porcelain with Painted Enamels.

Sotheby's. An Important European Collection of Chinese Ceramics - Acquired from Edward T. Chow, Hong Kong, 9 April 2024.