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Lot Essay
Porcelains decorated with the exquisite, subtle doucai enamels in the Chenghua period were highly treasured both by the Ming and Qing courts. Few pieces rival the exacting quality of Chenghua-period 'chicken' cups, which are finely potted and meticulously painted in soft enamels with a free and spontaneous scene of chickens tending to their chicks. While the theme of chickens is rarely used on porcelain decoration, a number of such cups were produced during the late Ming and Qing dynasties, in an attempt to recreate the fine and rare qualities of the famous Chenghua prototypes. Qing-dynasty examples exist with Chenghua marks, like the present pair, as well as with Kangxi and Yongzheng marks. Examples of each type from the Edward T. Chow Collection, are illustrated together by M. Beurdeley, La Ceramique Chinoise, col. pls. 71 and 72.
Yongzheng-period ceramicists tried to reproduce all aspects of these 15th-century pieces, particularly taking care to emulate the fine potting, soft glaze and delicate enamels of the Chenghua originals, while adding one new element to the design—an addition of black enamel. Although the tails of the roosters on Chenghua ‘chicken’ cups look black at a distance, the color is in fact created by using underglaze-blue enamel. In Kangxi-period ‘chicken’ cups, the tails are painted in black enamel, but due to the instability of the black enamel at the time, it was covered in a clear pale green or purple glaze. By the Yongzheng period, a true glossy black enamel was developed and was used on the tails and wings of the roosters and hens, as seen on the current pair.
It is very rare to find Yongzheng-period versions with four-character Chenghua marks like those on the present pair. A related, slightly larger (9.9 cm. diam.) Yongzheng-period example with a six-character Chenghua mark in a square in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 256, no. 234. A pair of Yongzheng-marked doucai ‘chicken’ cups were exhibited at the Min Chiu Society Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition, Selected Treasures of Chinese Art, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1990, no. 165; and one from the Sedgwick Collection, included in the O. C. S. exhibition, Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, London, 1964, no. 194.
Yongzheng-period ceramicists tried to reproduce all aspects of these 15th-century pieces, particularly taking care to emulate the fine potting, soft glaze and delicate enamels of the Chenghua originals, while adding one new element to the design—an addition of black enamel. Although the tails of the roosters on Chenghua ‘chicken’ cups look black at a distance, the color is in fact created by using underglaze-blue enamel. In Kangxi-period ‘chicken’ cups, the tails are painted in black enamel, but due to the instability of the black enamel at the time, it was covered in a clear pale green or purple glaze. By the Yongzheng period, a true glossy black enamel was developed and was used on the tails and wings of the roosters and hens, as seen on the current pair.
It is very rare to find Yongzheng-period versions with four-character Chenghua marks like those on the present pair. A related, slightly larger (9.9 cm. diam.) Yongzheng-period example with a six-character Chenghua mark in a square in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum, Hong Kong, 1999, p. 256, no. 234. A pair of Yongzheng-marked doucai ‘chicken’ cups were exhibited at the Min Chiu Society Thirtieth Anniversary Exhibition, Selected Treasures of Chinese Art, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1990, no. 165; and one from the Sedgwick Collection, included in the O. C. S. exhibition, Arts of the Ch'ing Dynasty, London, 1964, no. 194.