102.
A PAIR OF ‘BLUE AND WHITE’ TRICK CUPS
Qing dynasty, second half of the 17th century
4 x 8 cm
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. nn. 3344, 3351.
The bowls are both standing on three small feet, the rounded walls rising to an eight-lobed rim, the interior with an upside down cup with a pierced hole to the centre of the upper side, the interior of the bowls with a decoration of flowers and petal, the exterior of the walls with vertical lines simulating the veining of a flower head.
The ‘surprise’ of these cups is the small figure coming out from the upper hole of the internal half globe when the container is full of liquid.
Surprise cups were already created by Dehua kilns during the seventeenth century (see for example the ‘Blanc de Chine’ pair in the Meiyingtan collection: R. Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Meiyintang Collection, 2 volls, London 1994, II, nn. 983-984).
Comparable cups have been found in the Hatcher cargo, sank in 1645 (see the example in the Groninger Museum, inv. 1984.0251).
A similar cup is in the Princesshof Museum, Leeuwarden (inv. NO 00320).
