Lot 26. A pair of doucai 'Sanduo' cups, Marks and period of Yongzheng.  7.2 cm., 2 7/8 in. Estimate 1,000,000-1,500,000 HKD. Lot sold: 2,420,000 HKD. Photo Sotheby's

the centre of the interior decorated with a spray of gardenia encircled by four similar sprays on the cavetto, the veins and details finely painted in white slip, the exterior similarly decorated with a continuous scroll, all beneath a vibrant egg-yolk yellow en

each with slightly rounded conical sides rising from a straight foot, delicately painted in the doucai palette on the exterior with three fruiting branches, one bearing two yellow finger citrons, another with three peaches with spotted skin shaded from yellowish green to bright red at the tips, and the third with four lychees, two red ones with the underglaze blue textures beneath the red and two yellow with red detailing, the interior painted with a medallion enclosing a red rose and a bud on a thorny stem, the base inscribed within a sixcharacter reign mark in underglaze blue within a double ring.

Litterature: Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, London, 1994-2010, vol. 4, no. 1748.

Note: Other pairs of cups of this design are illustrated in Yeh Pei-lang [Ye Peilan], Beauty of Ceramics, vol. 6: Gems of the Doucai, Taipei, 1993, pl. 78; in Chinese Porcelain. The S.C. Ko Tianminlou Collection, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1987, pl. 98; and in Julian Thompson, The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, cat. no. 49; a pair from the collection of Edward T. Chow was sold in these rooms, 19th May 1981, lot 561; and a pair from the collection of Paul and Helen Bernat, 15th November 1988, lot 6

Sotheby's. The Meiyintang Collection, Part III - An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Hong Kong | 04 avr. 2012