A tall blue and white 'Red Cliff' cup Yongzheng four-character mark, 18th century
Lot 45
A tall blue and white 'Red Cliff' cup
Yongzheng four-character mark, 18th century
£6,000 - 10,000
US$ 10,000 - 17,000
Auction Details
A tall blue and white 'Red Cliff' cup Yongzheng four-character mark, 18th century A tall blue and white 'Red Cliff' cup Yongzheng four-character mark, 18th century
Lot Details
This lot is being sold under the Alpha Scheme
A tall blue and white 'Red Cliff' cup
Yongzheng four-character mark, 18th century
Delicately painted in underglaze blue with a scene of Su Dongpo and two friends in a covered raft steered by an attendant through a rocky riverscape, beneath a moon and three-starred constellation and a crane in flight, the reverse with an inscription. 8.9cm (3½in) high

Footnotes

  • 十八世紀 青花人物故事詩文杯 青花「雍正年製」楷書款

    The inscription reads:

    五百年前續此遊，
    水光依舊接天浮，
    徘徊今夜東山月，
    仿佛當年壬戌秋，
    有客得魚臨赤壁，
    無人载酒出黄州，
    吟成一浦千山寂，
    孤鶴横江掠小舟.

    This can be translated as:

    Five hundred years ago they continued their outing here,
    The water's reflection according to the ancients joined with the floating sky;
    Tonight the moon waivers behind eastern mountain,
    Like that autumn of the renxu year [1082];
    A traveller got a fish facing Red Cliff,
    No one took wine to Huangzhou;
    Our chanting becomes quiet among the tributaries and thousand peaks,
    A lone crane traverses the river skimming over the small boat.

    This cup commemorates the work of the famous poet Su Shi (1037-1101), also known as Su Dongpo, and his most celebrated poem Ode to the Red Cliff. Imitating a painting by the artist Li Song (1190–1225), the image of Su Dongpo travelling in a boat became a very popular and immediately recognisable motif in Chinese art.
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