finely potted, the deep rounded sides rising from a short foot to a flared rim, delicately enamelled around the exterior with a red-flowering peach tree with small blossoms among scant leaves, representing the third month, the reverse inscribed in underglaze blue with a poem followed by a seal mark reading shang (appreciation), the base inscribed in underglaze blue with a six-character mark within a double circle.

Note: Month cups depicting seasonal flowers accompanied by pertinent two-line poems represent a classic design of the Kangxi period (r. 1662-1722). 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.

The poem on the present cup may be translated as follows: