A blue and white 'chicken' brushpot, Seal mark and period of Qianlong | 清乾隆 青花子母雞圖筆筒 《大清乾隆年製》款

Please note the estimates have been updated to HKD 1,500,000 - 3,500,000. 請注意此拍品估價更新至港幣1,500,000 - 3,500,000。

Decorated in varied shades of underglaze blue, the present brush pot represents an evolution of the celebrated ‘chicken’ motif, adapted for the fine eye and scholarly taste of the Qianlong Emperor. 

The depiction of a cock and hen with their chicks in a garden setting was first developed on porcelain during the Chenghua reign. Although the subject was already well established in Song dynasty painting, the famed doucai ‘chicken cups’ of the late Chenghua period soon established the motif as a classic of the Chinese canon, beloved by emperors and connoisseurs alike. Even as decorative techniques and tastes developed into the High Qing period, the ‘chicken’ design endured, replicated at the imperial kilns on new porcelain forms in a range of innovative techniques. 

Compare other related ‘chicken’ designs of this period, including cups of famille rose enamel inscribed with an imperial poem and Qianlong fanggu mark, in the Special Exhibition of K’ang-hsi, Yung-cheng and Ch’ien-lung Porcelain Ware from the Ch’ing Dynasty in the Palace Museum, Taipei, 1986, cat. no. 144; doucai bowls of Yongzheng mark and period, including one in Selected Chinese Ceramics from Han to Qing Dynasties, Chang Foundation, Taipei, 1990, pl. 139; and Qianlong brush pots of an almost identical design to the present but for added doucai enamels, including one preserved in the Qing court collection in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 246.