A BLUE AND WHITE INGOT-FORM CUP

17TH-EARLY 18TH CENTURY

Details

A BLUE AND WHITE INGOT-FORM CUP
17TH-EARLY 18TH CENTURY
The rising sides of the cup are painted with the 'Three Friends of Winter' (pine, prunus and bamboo) separated by stems of ruyi fungus at the center. The base is unglazed.
5 5/8 in. (14.2 cm.) long, box

Provenance

Collection of E.T. Chow; Sotheby Park Bernet, Hong Kong, 25 November 1980, lot 108.
Mason W. Wang, Maryland, 1983.
Collection of Julia and John Curtis.

Literature

Julia B. Curtis, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars’ Motifs and Narratives, New York, 1995, pp. 114-115, no. 44.

Exhibited

China Institute Gallery, New York, Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars’ Motifs and Narratives, 22 April – 5 August 1995.

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Margaret Gristina

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Lot Essay

In her note to this rare cup in Chinese Porcelains of the Seventeenth Century: Landscapes, Scholars’ Motifs and Narratives, New York, 1995, p. 114, Dr. Julia Curtis writes that this example was probably used by a scholar as a brush washer, and that the decoration of the 'Three Friends', signifying constancy and steadfastness, embodies the qualities of the scholar-official. The shape is rare to find in porcelain. Dr. Curtis also notes that the only other known published example of this shape, but dating to the nineteenth century, is illustrated by Claudia Brown in Chinese Porcelain: The Wong Collection, Phoenix, 1982, pl. 113.

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