Featured Small Square Asian Cup, Signed; I Think Chinese, But...

~2¼ inches square at the top, ~1⅝ inches high, ~1 inch foot. The creature in the bottom may be upside-down; I'm not smart enough to know if it's a bat or a dragon...or a moth! The 4-panel story on the sides is pretty cryptic, without knowing where to start...perhaps the inner critter is the key to that. The 4-character signature (I hope it's correctly oriented) should offer some help.

If it were Japanese, I'd call it a sake cup...but it's too weird for that origin, imho. What do y'all think? Thanks for lookin'!

 

Chinese Tea cup I'd reckon

Some Good age as well

Late 18th early 19th would be my guess

 

Good to hear, Charlie...Thanks!

 

I think i would classify this as Doucai but this particular style is called Wucai. The distinction being that the origin of this style lies in Doucai where the design and some of the outlines are painted in underglaze blue and then fired, and then the design is painted again in overglaze enamels. However with Doucai most of the design has underglaze blue underneath the overglaze coloured enamel.....In Wucai which followed Doucai it is the same except there is no underglaze blue benetah or under the overglaze coloured enamel but instead, parts of the design is in underglaze blue and the rest is in overglaze coloured enamel.... Hence on your item you have that strange underglaze blue head atop of the more finely painted overglaze enamel body. It might be noted that some of these odd appearing Doucai and wucai items can sell for huge sums of money.

Many replicas of the chicken cup were made in China in Qing dynasty 18th and 19th century and sold provincially and to South east Asian countries and were called Sawtow wares. Similar I suppose to 'Kitchen Qing'. The Malaccan term usually applied to every day porcelain used there by the common people; mostly provincial blue and white 19th century Chinese export dishes and bowls with simplified decoration.



A Chenghua chicken cup from the private Meiyintang collection of Chinese ceramics was sold at the auction for a record US$36.05 million (HK $281.24 million) to Shanghainese billionaire Liu Yiqian.


https://news.justcollecting.com/500-year-old-chinese-fish-jar-sells-for-27-million/

 

I'm deeply grateful for your finely detailed comments about this wee cup...and nearly speechless over the potential value it may have.

Thank you most sincerely for alerting me. Can you recommend an appropriate venue for its evaluation and eventual sale? I don't travel much anymore, but Seattle, Washington is just a 3 hour drive east.

 

I mean generally speakin these can have a great value despite looking like a child drew them. However, The mark seems like s trange version of wanli or Yongzheng. I cannot make it out but... I found this question sent to a more expert and he was not so impressed with the cup, and mentioned that there are many many Japanese wucai fakes as Japan was very fond of crude wucai tea sakes.

https://www.chinese-antique-porcelain.com/kangxi-wucai-six-charecter-marks-authentic.html

 

Thank you again for your extra effort, Francisco.

I now understand that this cup may have some age but is probably not genuine wucai.

The hope that it was gave me an interesting and exhilarating lift, though...welcome if short-lived!

 

Would need a more expert appraisal. I guess the authenicity is hard and the more authentic are quite rare.

Chinese Porcelain frequently replictaes porcelain from earlier era's and in partiucalr was quite common in the 19th century but was doen with great respect for the period it emulated. These later copies are still of considerable value. As an example many of these Chenghua marked porcelains were from a Wanli era shipwreck so this was a historic custom. The japanese also used the Chenghua mark on some of their porcelains.

http://www.thewanlishipwreck.com/marks-and-inscriptions.html

 

This a Japanese fake Chinese blue and white color glass, age should be in the Meiji period. Not a doucai. Hope I can help you.