A FINE AND VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE 'CHICKEN' BEAKER CUP

Details

A FINE AND VERY RARE FAMILLE ROSE 'CHICKEN' BEAKER CUP
QIANLONG SIX-CHARACTER SEAL MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

Of U-shape, delicately enamelled on the exterior straight sides to depict a cockerel standing majestically on rockwork, looking over at a hen pecking on the verdant ground beside her brood of chicks, all among flowering peony, palm tree and bamboo, the reverse with a long poem of seven-character verse followed by the Qianlong bing shen year, corresponding to 1776, the interior similarly decorated with a cockerel and hen within an iron-red bordered medallion, the base bearing a six-character seal mark, Da Qing Qianlong Fanggu, 'Imitating Antiquity in the Great Qing dynasty Qianlong period'
3 3/8 in. (8.6 cm.) diam.

Lot Essay

It is highly unusual to find beaker cups of this subject matter without the dancing young boy, such as the example in the Sze Tak Tong Collection, illustrated in Joined Colors: Decoration and Meaning in Chinese Porcelain, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., p. 138, no. 64. The Qianlong poem records well-known ceramics that were produced from as early of the Tang dynasty, and the 'chicken cup' of the Ming dynasty was regarded as the very best throughout antiquity. For a translation of the text, see op. cit., pp. 53-54; where the author points out that the rebus formed by the cockerel and peony flowers, gongming fugui, 'A cockerel is crowing near peony flowers', heralds the announcement of wealth and honour.

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