The present lot is possibly one of the smallest of this pattern. Similar cups with the Yongzheng reign mark within double squares are recorded. Cf. one in the Illustrated Catalogue of Ch'ing Dynasty Porcelain in the National Palace Museum, pl. 95; a pair given by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bernat to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 11, 1980, no. 255; and another in the Hong Kong Museum of Art, included in the exhibition The Wonders of the Potter's Palette, 1984, Catalogue no. 46.

Compare with the fifteenth-century prototype, a Chenghua-marked piece excavated from the late Chenghua stratum of the Imperial kilnsite at Jingdezhen, illustrated in the exhibition Catalogue, A Legacy of Chenghua, Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, no. C101; another of the same form and design from the Percival David Collection included in the O.C.S. exhibition, The Arts of the Ming Dynasty, 1957, Catalogue, no. 178; and one in the Exhibition of Ming and Ch'ing Porcelain from the Collection of the T.Y. Chao Family Foundation, Hong Kong, 1978, Catalogue no. 32.

(US$26,000-39,000)