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City tycoon buys ‘chicken cup’ for US$36m
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A SHANGHAI collector yesterday bought a rare Ming Dynasty cup touted as the “holy grail” of China’s art world for US$36 million at a Hong Kong auction, smashing the previous world record price for Chinese porcelain.
Sotheby’s named Liu Yiqian as the winning bidder for the small white cup, which measures just 8 centimeters in diameter and is more than 500 years old. The vessel is known as a “chicken cup” because it is decorated with a rooster and hen tending to their chicks.
It was made during the reign of the Ming Dynasty’s Chenghua Emperor, who ruled from 1465 to 1487. Sotheby’s said there are only 17 such cups in existence, with four in private hands and the rest in museums.
“There’s no more legendary object in the history of Chinese porcelain,” said Nicholas Chow, Sotheby’s deputy chairman for Asia. “This is really the holy grail when it comes to Chinese art.”
It is considered one of the most sought-after items in Chinese art, viewed with a reverence perhaps equivalent to that for the jeweled Faberge eggs of Czarist Russia.
“Every time a chicken cup comes on the market, it totally redefines prices in the field of Chinese art,” Chow said.
Prized by Chinese emperors and aficionados through the centuries for their quality, rarity and legendary silky texture, Chenghua chicken cups fired in the imperial kilns of Jingde Town are among the most prized, and forged, objects in Chinese art.
For such a prized item, bidding was limited to a handful of wealthy collectors and when the winning bid was hammered down at HK$250 million (US$32.2 million), the standing-room only crowd broke into applause. The auction house’s commission brought the total to HK$281.2 million. The pre-sale estimate of the maximum sale price was HK$300 million.
Sotheby’s said the previous record for Chinese porcelain was set in 2010 when a gourd-shaped Qianlong vase sold for US$32.4 million.
The cup had come from the celebrated Western collection of Chinese ceramics, the “Meiyintang,” accumulated over 50 years by Swiss pharmaceutical tycoons the Zuellig brothers.
With Liu’s purchase, the Meiyintang centerpiece is set to become the only known genuine “chicken cup” in China.
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