Antique 18C Chinese Porcelain Tea Set Cuckoo in the house Qing period

Out of stock

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Condition Report: No hairlines, restorations or chips. Saucer with 2 small frits and cup Perfect. Size 11.2x2 and 6.3x3.4CM DiameterxHeight

Teacup and saucer on footring. Decorated in underglaze blue. In the centre of the saucer, a spray of asters in the upper half of the design, the lower half shows a small house and a separate tall chimney while two partridge-like birds fly in the sky. Around the rim a stylised laurel border. On the reverse three flower sprays. The teacup is decorated in similar style.

In the Netherlands this specific design is called koekoek uit ´t huisje or ‘cuckoo outside of the cottage’. (Lunsingh Scheurleer 1966, p.102) The origin has never been explained. There are a number of variations and the popularity of the design ensured its reordering over a considerable period. (Howard 1994, p.44) The design is exactly as painted on cups and saucers of c.1695, recovered off the Vung Tau peninsula from the wreck of a Chinese vessel sailing to Batavia. (Howard 1994, p.44) In Sotheby’s auction catalogue “Made in Imperial China. 76.000 pieces of Chinese Export Porcelain from the Ca Mau shipwreck, circa 1725. seven teacups and thirty-two saucers identically decorated were sold as the “Garden Pavilion“ pattern and described as “decorated with a small pavilion, its chimney smoking, flanked by birds perched on a giant column and bush, the rim with a stylised laurel pattern border“. Sotheby’s adds that the pattern exists in early Meissen. (Amsterdam 2007, p.124, lots 461-462).

Period: Kangxi⁠/Yongzheng
Country of origin: China⁠

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