Lot 3614. A fine wucai 'Month' cup, Mark and period of Kangxi (1662-1722); 6.6 cm, 2 5/8  in. Estimate: 300,000 — 500,000 HKD (38,217 - 63,695 USD). Lot Sold 1,125,000 HKD (143,505 USD). Courtesy Sotheby's.

finely potted with deep rounded sides rising from a short foot to a flared rim, the exterior delicately enamelled with red florets, the reverse inscribed in underglaze blue with a poem reading Qing xiang he su yu, jia se chu qing yan ('The fragrance blends with the flavour of evening rain; the beautiful colour stands out in clear weather like in mist'), followed by a seal mark reading shang, the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character reign mark within a double circle.

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28th April 1998, lot 823.

Note: Month cups depicting seasonal flowers accompanied by pertinent two-line poems, represent a classic design of the Kangxi period. Very delicately potted, they are painted in the proper wucai palette of underglaze blue and overglaze enamels, which was devised in the Ming dynasty, but rarely used in the Qing, when the underglaze colour was generally omitted. On these month cups the designs are generally sketched on the unglazed porcelain in a faint underglaze blue.

Slight differences in size, colours, writing styles and marks between individual cups and different months suggest that even these cups may not have been produced as sets of twelve, but perhaps issued consecutively, as the year evolved, to be assembled at the end.

Complete sets of month cups are extremely rare. A full set of month cups in the Palace Museum, Bejing, is illustrated in Kangxi. Yongzheng. Qianlong. Qing Porcelain from the Palace Museum Collection, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 65, pl. 48; another set from the Sir Percival David collection and now in the British Museum, London, is published in the Illustrated Catalogue of Qing Enamelled Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, rev. ed., London, 1991, pl. 815; another in the Idemitsu Museum of Art, Tokyo, is included in Chinese Ceramics in the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1987, pl. 221.

A set of twelve wucai month wine cups, Qing dynasty, Kangxi marks and period, about AD 1700. Porcelain with underglaze cobalt-blue and overglaze enamels, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Height 5 cm. Diameter 6.5 cm. On loan from Sir Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, PDF.815. © Trustees of the British Museum

Sotheby's. Important Chinese Art, Hong Kong, 03 oct. 2018, 03:00 PM