Ming Dynasty Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup: The Auction Legend of a Small Cup

In 2014, at Sotheby's spring auction in Hong Kong, a small Ming Dynasty Chenghua doucai chicken cup stunned the audience and was finally hammered down at HK$281.24 million, setting a new auction record at the time for Chinese ceramic artworks and making this small teacup—less than 8 centimeters in diameter—a legendary object known throughout collecting circles worldwide.

This chicken cup was fired during the Chenghua reign of the Ming Dynasty and came from the Jingdezhen imperial kiln. It has long been regarded as the pinnacle of Ming Dynasty imperial kiln porcelain. Legend has it that the chicken cup was made by the Chenghua Emperor for his beloved consort, Consort Wan. The body of the cup depicts a hen and a rooster leading chicks as they forage and play, symbolizing family well-being and endless vitality. According to academic statistics, only 19 authentic Chenghua chicken cups are currently recognized worldwide as extant, and the vast majority are permanently held in major museums, including the Palace Museums on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the British Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Including this piece from the former Meiyintang collection, only 4 remain in the hands of private collectors, and the chance of one circulating on the market is extremely slim.

While the original Chenghua chicken cups belong to the world of rare antiques, their enduring charm can also be appreciated through a contemporary interpretation. Explore our handmade replica Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup, a 70ml Jingdezhen porcelain tasting cup inspired by this celebrated design.

What is doucai?

Doucai is a composite decorative technique unique to Chinese ceramics. "Dou" means that the underglaze blue-and-white and the overglaze colors echo and compete with one another in beauty. Its production process is complicated and strict: first, all decorative outlines are drawn on the unfired body with cobalt blue pigment; then the piece is covered with transparent glaze and fired in the kiln at a high temperature of about 1,280°C. After being removed from the kiln and cooled, various overglaze colors are filled into the blue-and-white outlines, and the piece is fired a second time in the kiln at a lower temperature of about 800°C to set the colors. This process allows very little margin for error: the temperature range for the two firings is very narrow. If the temperature is too high, the overglaze colors easily peel off and the blue-and-white lines blur and spread; if the temperature is too low, the colors appear dull and have poor adhesion. At the same time, the thermal expansion coefficients of the underglaze blue-and-white and overglaze colors must match precisely; once the balance is lost, the object is very likely to crack or deform. If any single step goes wrong, the entire piece is ruined. Therefore, in ancient times the yield rate of doucai was extremely low, with scarcely one or two successes out of a hundred pieces.

Why is it so expensive?

1. Extremely high technical threshold and scarce finished products: The composite double-firing process of doucai places severe demands on kiln fire, body and glaze, and coloring materials. In ancient times, without precise temperature-control equipment, firing was enormously difficult, and very few authentic Chenghua pieces from the reign itself survive intact today.

2. An exclusively imperial vessel, treasured since ancient times: The chicken cup was an imperial object made by the Chenghua imperial kiln exclusively for the inner court, and private production was forbidden. As early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, it was already highly valuable. Historical records state that "in the Shenzong period, when dining, before the emperor there was a pair of Chenghua colored chicken cups, worth money—"

Bring a touch of this porcelain heritage to your tea table with our Chenghua Doucai Chicken Cup, a handmade 70ml Jingdezhen porcelain replica inspired by the celebrated Ming design. Discover the cup and make it part of your own tea ritual.