Blue and white hand cup (flower center)

[Blue and white pressure cup (flower center)]

Blue and white pressure cup (flower center), Ming Yongle, height 4.9 cm, caliber 9.2 cm, foot diameter 3.9 cm
The cup body is like a small bowl, the mouth is slightly tilted, the waist is bent, the bottom is full, and the feet are circled. Both inside and outside are painted with blue and white patterns. There is a sunflower in the center of the cup, and the center of the flower is printed with the four characters of “Yongle Year System” in blue and white seal. The outer wall mouth is painted with a plum blossom and the abdomen is painted with a lotus pattern
The hand-pressing cup is a new porcelain cup created by Jingdezhen Royal Kiln Factory during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. This cup is finely made, simple and thick in shape, and dark green in blue and white
The hand-pressing cup is characterized by its thick body, its center of gravity at the bottom of the cup, and its mouth edge slightly outward. When holding the cup, it is pressed against the mouth of the hand, giving a feeling of heavy pressure on the hand, so it is called “hand-pressing cup”. The Yongle blue and white hand-pressing cup in the Ming Dynasty is a kind of material object that can be mutually verified with the literature records in the Ming Dynasty porcelain, and has important research value. Gu Yingtai of the Ming Dynasty specially mentioned this kind of cup in his book “Museum Highlights”: “If I make a pressure cup in Yongle, open mouth, folded waist, sand feet slippery bottom. The center painting has two lions rolling ball, and the inside of the ball is” made in Yongle of the Ming Dynasty “six-character or four-character seal script, which is as fine as grain of rice, this is the top grade; the heart of the mandarin duck comes second; the heart of the flower comes second. The blue and white outside the cup is deep and green, and the style is exquisite, which can be handed down for a long time, and the price is also very high.” In the collection of the Palace Museum, Yongle blue and white hand pressure cup with double lion hydrangea inner book model and flower heart inner book model. In addition, the cup with the design of mandarin duck lying on the lotus in the heart was copied during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. According to the information available at present, only the Palace Museum has 4 hand-pressing cups with excellent quality and Yongle model.

青花压手杯（花心）杯心青花压手杯（花心）底部