Lot 912. From The Au Bak Ling Collection. A rare copper-red decorated ‘chrysanthemum scroll’ barbed-rim cup stand, Hongwu period (1368-1398); 20 cm diam. Price realised HKD 1,651,000 (Estimate HKD 1,000,000 – HKD 1,800,000) © Christie's Images Ltd 2025
 

Provenance: Sold at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27 October 1992, lot 30.

Note: A number of Hongwu cup stands of this design have been preserved in important museum and private collections, though few match the intensity of the copper red tone found on this rare example.

Similar copper-red cup stands painted with a central ruyi medallion include an example in the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing (fig. 1), illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, vol. 34: Blue and White Porcelain with Underglaze Red (I), Hong Kong, 2000, no. 225; one in the Shanghai Museum, illustrated by Lu Minghua, Mingdai guanyao ciqi [Ming Imperial Ceramic], Shanghai, 2007, p. 8; and another from the collections of Manno Art Museum and Le Cong Tang, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 27 November 2017, lot 8001.

fig. 1 A rare copper-red decorated ‘chrysanthemum scroll’ barbed-rim cup stand, Hongwu period (1368-1398), Collection of Palace Museum, Beijing.

Christie's. The Ai Lian Tang Collection - Imperial Scholar's Objects, Hong Kong, 30 October 2025