stem cup BM-1943-0215.13

Period:Ming dynasty Production date:1465-1487
Materials:porcelain
Technique:glazed, doucai, underglazed,
Subjects:bird tree/bush
Dimensions:Diameter: 6.80 centimetres Height: 7.60 centimetres

Description:
Porcelain stem cup with decoration in underglaze blue and overglaze enamel in ‘doucai’ style. This thinly potted stem cup has a round bowl with sides which gently flare out towards the rim and a hollow flared stem. Outside two sets of birds are depicted perched among fruiting branches, outlined in underglaze blue and infilled with blackened overglaze enamels in ‘doucai’ style. Inside the foot is a horizontal six-character underglaze blue Chenghua reign mark read from right to left. Both cup and stem are glazed inside.
IMG


Comments:Harrison-Hall 2001:This stem cup is badly cracked and its enamels have burned black. Damaged areas were analyzed in 1992 using nondestructive X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and the damaged enamels were found to be consistent with the vessel’s having been in a fire, especially if stored in a fabric-lined or wooden box which would have generated a reducing atmosphere. From the waste heaps excavated at the imperial kilns at Jingdezhen we know that quality control would have intervened and this cup would have been destroyed if the damage had occurred during the kiln firing process. In fact flawed shards forming a stem cup of this type were excavated in the late Chenghua strata at Zhushan, Jingdezhen.In 1943, when this stem cup was registered at the British Museum, it was recorded that it had been damaged during a fire at the Forbidden City in 1923. Identical stem cups also with burned enamels are in, for example, the Palace Museum, Beijing, the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, London, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, whose records note that seventeen stem cups were damaged in the palace fire. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s cup was in two collections in the United Kingdom – the Oliphant and later the Collingwood – before being bought from Sotheby’s in 1954. Sir Percival David purchased his damaged cup from the sale of the Wu Laixi collection in 1937. An undamaged stem cup of this type is in the National Palace Museum, Taipei. From this we can see the original colours of the enamels: green leaves, brown branches, yellow and red fruits.