This elegant water pot belongs to an elite group of small scholars objects made during the Kangxi reign which employed extremely restrained decoration executed in the rare combination of underglaze copper-red and overglaze green, black, and occasionally aubergine, enamels.
Similar Kangxi waterpots of identical design can be found in a number of famous collections, including one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Kangxi Yongzheng Qianlong, Hong Kong, 1989, p. 41, no. 24; one is illustrated by J. Ayers, Chinese Ceramics in The Baur Collection, vol. II, 1999, no. 149; and another by R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, vol. II, London, 1994, p. 111, no. 737.