Lot 3. The Au Bak Ling Collection. A rare blue and white barbed-rim ‘floral’ cup stand, Hongwu period (1368-1398); 19.5 cm. diam. Price realised HKD 3,780,000 (Estimate HKD 800,000 – HKD 1,200,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2024.

The cup stand is of lobed octa-foil form, the thick bracket-lobed sides raise to an everted barbed rim. The interior is moulded with a raised ring encircled by lotus petals, the centre medallion is painted with a peony spray surrounded by a scroll of six chrysanthemum and further eight lotus sprays in the cavetto, the rim is decorated with classic scroll and key fret border to the edge, the exterior is moulded with petal lappets defined in pencilled decoration.

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 27 October 1992, lot 31.

Note: Imperial porcelains from the Hongwu period were painted in either blue-and-white or copper-red. According to Lu Minghua in Mingdai guanyao ciqi, Shanghai, 2007, p. 8, most of the heirloom pieces are copper-red decorated, and underglaze blue wares are much rarer.

Compare to a similar cup stand formerly in the E.T Chow, Matthias Komor, Myron S. Falk and Meiyintang Collections, illustrated by Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. 4, London, 1994-2010, no. 1627; and another included in the Exhibition of Ancient Chinese Ceramics, From the Collection of the Kau Chi Society of Chinese Art, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1981, cat. no. 61.

While a number of cup stands dated to the Hongwu period are recorded, heirloom matching cups are virtually unknown.However, a Hongwu period blue and white cup discovered from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns, decoratedwith peony and chrysanthemum scrolls to the interior, together with a matching cup stand, is illustrated in Imperial Porcelains from the Reigns of Hongwu and Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, Beijing, 2015, no. 31..

Christie's. The Au Bak Ling Collection: The Inaugural Sale, Hong Kong, 26 September 2024