Chenghua Chicken Cup (Ming Dynasty, ca 1447-1487 AD)
Last week Ferrebeekeeper featured a delicate porcelain cup from the Ming Dynasty. I was going to let you think about it for a while before showing more Chinese porcelain, but the news of the world has intervened with my plans. Behold the famous Meiyintang Chenghua Chicken Cup which was made in mid 15th century China.
Chenghua Chicken Cup (Ming Dynasty, ca 1447-1487 AD)
Made of delicate white paste porcelain, the cup is quite charming. A bold rooster struts vainly through a garden of prayer stones and red flowers while a pragmatic hen snatches up bugs with her beak. Around the pair is a little flock of endearing chicks. The scene is almost exactly copied on the opposite side (as you can see in this futuristic albeit mildly sinister wrap-around photo).
Chenghua Chicken Cup (Ming Dynasty, ca 1447-1487 AD)
The cup has spawned countless imitations—you could go to a Chinese market and buy endless chicken cups of plastic and porcelain for not very much money. Yet the reason that the original cup has made waves in the international news is not because of its beauty or its legacy but instead because of the sky high price which it commanded at auction today (April 8, 2014) in Hong Kong. Sotheby’s auction house reports that the chicken cup sold for a record 36 million US dollars (well, really 281.2 million Hong Kong dollars to be exact). For comparison Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for 7.2 million dollars (although if we adjust for inflation, that price goes up a good deal).
The cup was made in the Ming dynasty during the reign of Emperor Chenghua (who ruled from 1464-1487). Emperor Chenghua was the father of the renowned and righteous Hongzhi Emperor whose reign was a high water mark for the Ming. The story of Emperor Hongzhi’s boyhood however is one of terror and fear. The young crown prince was nearly snuffed out by the infamous Lady Wan, an imperial concubine of Emperor Chenghua who tried to consolidate power by surreptitiously killing off all of the emperor’s male heirs (and all of his other favorite concubines to boot). The turmoil and corruption at court spread far and wide.
Chenghua Chicken Cup (Ming Dynasty, ca 1447-1487 AD)
I wonder if the unknown artisan—or team of artisans—who made this little cup were thinking about the problems in the imperial court and in society as they churned out a big batch of chicken cups long ago. I also wonder how they would react to the fact that this one somehow survived more than 500 years of war, upheaval, and change to end up being sold for more than a lord’s estate.
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April 9, 2014 at 2:18 AM
Harold
This is very interesting — and beautiful. Reading about it, one experiences what one writer called “The shock of the old” — since the design of tea cups has changed so little over the millennia. Who would have guessed that the seemingly mundane farmyard scene might hint at a cautionary reference. I wonder if the his narrow childhood escape didn’t play a part in the next emperor’s decision to practice monogamy.
I also noticed that someone on the Gardenweb Antique Rose Forum posted about the sale of this same cup, wondering if the leaves depicted on it were those of an early, now-lost China rose: “They see a chicken cup, I see rose leaves” — http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/rosesant/msg041432229144.html?6
At any rate, thank you for calling it to our attention.
April 9, 2014 at 5:15 PM
Wayne
I get the sense that the Hongzhi Emperor’s awful chidhood of fear and hiding had nearly everything to do with his monogamous court and with his personal obsession over ensuring a happy peaceful empire. It is a terrible irony that his lone pampered heir turned out to be such a miserable leader. Usually Chinese emperors had plenty of princes to choose from, but Hongzhi’s unique marital circumstances left him, like his father before him, with only one.
I love the idea that the red flowers on the cup are the lost China roses of the high Ming! Perhaps this cup should be called the chicken-rose cup–a magnificent synthesis of the practical and the aesthetic (and of perfect form wedded with timeless function).
April 9, 2014 at 1:03 PM
Mike
Wow, $36 million? The marketing branch of the Chinese porcelain industry is the best in the world.
April 9, 2014 at 5:06 PM
Wayne
Indeed…If only I had a cup the size of half-a-lemon with a chicken on it….
December 6, 2014 at 4:37 PM
Floyd Mitchell
Very interesting historical information about a beautiful ceramic item. I am a collector of chinese ceramics from the 9th to 15th centuries – items that were unearthed from long abandoned Chinese communities established to run mineral mining operations during those times. One of my first purchases was a cup almost identical to the one shown, together with a damaged Chenhua stem cup with two birds on a peach tree branch. So I actually have one of these cups, in perfect condition. It was thrilling to find out the value of the cup, which I had no knowledge of before this. The Chenghua items are not from excavations, more likely they are heirlooms that go back to the same mining communities.
February 7, 2015 at 9:43 PM
Timothy Lee
wow, never wish for a cup exactly like that for it will never come. Demand it and the universe will seeks it for you, its the law.
February 7, 2015 at 11:39 PM
Wayne
The…SECRET (of chicken cups).
February 8, 2015 at 12:06 AM
Timothy
Ah ha, by Rhonda Byrne. So what’s your Ming of the world like. Millions of dollars on a piece of porcelain. How lucky for its owner. Culture, what a volatile market for investment. Who knows, Tomorrow it will be a beautiful Hawaiian flower lei, preserve from King Kamehameha the first (1567).