Ming-era chicken cup sells for record €26.3m
The tiny white cup, decorated with a colour painting of a rooster and a hen tending to their chicks, was made during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor between 1465 and 1487.
The price sets a record for Chinese porcelain, according to Sotheby’s, beating the previous record held by a gourd-shaped vase from the Qianlong period, which sold in 2010 for HK$252.66m (€23.6m).
Nicolas Chow, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, described the cup as the “holy grail” of Chinese art.
“There is no more legendary object in the history of Chinese porcelain. This is an object bathed in mythology,” he told reporters after the sale.
“It has gone to an extraordinarily good home in Shanghai in the collection of Liu Yiqian.”
Bidding started at HK$160m, with Liu putting up the winning bid over the telephone after a lengthy battle.
A taxi-driver turned financier, 50-year-old Liu is one of China’s wealthiest people. Worth an estimated $1.6bn (€1.15bn) and with two museums to his name, Liu made headlines when he bought a Song-era scroll for $8.2m at a Sotheby’s auction in New York in September — only to have it dismissed as a fake by a trio of experts. He stands by its authenticity.
The chicken cup represents the pinnacle of Ming-era porcelain production, according to Sotheby’s. Less than 20 such cups are known to exist, with just four in private collections, Chow said, adding that this will become the only genuine chicken cup in China upon its return.
