A rare pair of famille-rose decorated cups from the Yongzheng period sold for £1.9 million at Sotheby’s in London on November 8. The top lot in a sale of Important Chinese Art the cups are masterpieces of the fencai (‘famille-rose’) colour scheme. With the introduction of white enamel from Europe in the early 18th century, craftsmen working at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen developed a new palette and realised its full potential in the early years of the Yongzheng reign (1723-1735).
These cups, painted with sophisticated shades of pastel tones to capture a sense of three-dimensionality, embody to perfection the refined aesthetic of the Yongzheng Emperor. The design, with sprays of fruiting pomegranate, peach and loquat, represents a variation of the auspicious ‘sanduo’ (‘three abundances’) motif – long life, an abundance of offspring and plentiful blessings. The sale brought a total of £6.4 million.