Chinese biscuit-decorated susancai cup

Code: susancai_cup

A sturdily-potted Chinese cup with two leopard and bat handles and decorated on the biscuit with famille verte (susancai) enamels.   The exterior of the cup is decorated with horses, fish and flower heads against a green background with black swirls.  The inside of the cup is painted as a fishpond scene with three fish swimming amidst water weeds.   Width across the handles 16.5cm (6.5”)

An attractive cup with good quality decoration.  Dating this cup is not straightforward.  The style of decoration in susancai enamels on the biscuit is found on wares from the Kangxi period, and the dense paste of this cup is also similar to that found on Kangxi porcelain.  These wares were also produced, however, during the second half of the Nineteenth Century and the way the horses have been painted perhaps suggest this later date.  For this reason we will apply caution and date this cup to that period.

Provenance: attached label for the Vermeer and Griggs collection.  Other collector’s marks also on the base.
 

Date: Nineteenth Century

 

Condition:
One handle has been broken off and re-fixed leaving a shallow chip to the base of the handle and a small area of missing green enamel from the body of the cup beneath the handle. (see 8th image).