Lot 253. A Fine Pair of Fine Yellow-Glazed Cups, Yongzheng Marks and Period (1723-1735); 6.2cm., 2 1/2 in. Estimate 30,000 - 50,000 GBP. Lot sold 133,250 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

each delicately potted with rounded sides supported on a short foot and rising to a slightly flared rim, covered to the exterior with a pale egg-yolk yellow glaze, the interior and the base left white, inscribed with a six-character Yongzheng mark within a double-circle.

Provenance: A European Private Collection.
Marchant, London.

Note: Fine Yongzheng mark and period wine cups of this type can be found enamelled in two types of yellow glazes - deep yellow often referred to as ‘Imperial yellow’, as seen on the present pair, and lemon-yellow which derives its pastel tone from lead stannate. For closely related examples to this pair see a cup illustrated in Peter Lam, Shimmering Colours, Monochromes of the Yuan to Qing Periods, Hong Kong, 2005, pl. 128; a cup, from the E.T. Hall collection, sold at Christie’s London, 7th June 2004, lot 90; and a pair of cups sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 27th April 1999, lot 420.

Compare also a cup included in Gordon Lang, The Powell-Cotton Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Birchington, 1988, col. pl. 6, no. 85; and a slightly larger pair of cups of this shape in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, published in Jan Wirgin, ‘Chinese Ceramics from the Axel and Nora Lundgren Bequest’, B.M.F.E.A. no. 50, 1978, pl. 58, no. 77. Compare also a lemon-yellow glazed cup of this shape and size, but bearing an unusual square Yongzheng six-character reign mark, in the Meiyintang collection, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. 4, pt. II, London, 2011, p. 387, pl. 1829, where the author mentions a slightly smaller cup of the same glaze colour and reign mark in the Baur Collection, Geneva.

Sotheby's. Fine Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art, London, 07 november 2012