Highly treasured by both Ming and Qing courts for its subtle execution of soft enamel colours, in essence 'chicken' cups of the early Qing period kept its style and design to the original Ming Chenghua-marked prototypes. There are minor differences to the Ming original in that the later interpretations show the chickens variously positioned, although the chicken family units generally remain the same. The most notable difference is the rendering of the cockerels' solid black tail feathers, and as can be seen from the fantail-like spread of one of the cockerels on the present cup; these tail feathers display an expressive style of the brush that deviates from their Ming predecessors.

Compare the present lot with other Yongzheng 'chicken' cups: four cups from the Hong Kong Museum of Art are illustrated in Three Decades of Acquisition at the Art Museum, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 226; and a single cup from the Sedgwick Collection, included in the O.C.S. exhibition, The Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, London, 1964, no. 194. Cf. also the three cups in the Edward T. Chow Collection, with Chenghua, Kangxi and Yongzheng marks, all illustrated together by M. Beurdeley, La Ceramique Chinoise, col. pls. 71 and 72.