A fine doucai 'Flower and Butterfly' wine cup, Qing dynasty, Kangxi period. Estimate  50,000 — 70,000  HKD.  Lot sold. 437,500 HKD. Photo Sotheby's.

delicately painted in underglaze-blue, iron-red and translucent green, yellow and aubergine enamels with four different butterflies fluttering above tall, slender grasses and flowering plants springing from outcrops of ornamental rockwork, the underside inscribed with a four-character Chenghua mark within a double-square; 9 cm., 3 1/2  in.

Provenance: Christie's Paris, 14th June 2006, lot 357.

Note: A bowl of this decoration and a Chenghua mark in a double square was included in the exhibition Ch'ing Polychrome Porcelain, Hong Kong Oriental Ceramic Society, Hong Kong, 1977, cat. no. 57; a pair of similar bowls was sold in these rooms, 2nd May 2005, lot 601, and another 17th May 1988, lot 211. For the Chenghua origin of this design, see a slender doucai cup illustrated in Enamelled Ware of the Ming Dynasty. Porcelain of the National Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1966, pl. 17.

Sotheby's. CHINESE ART. 01 JUNE 2015 - 02 JUNE 2015 | 3:15 PM HKT - HONG KONG