The stem cup is decorated in the famille verte palette; the slender panels of the deep-sided, faceted cup are finely painted with birds and insects fluttering among flowering plants.
The stem cup is decorated in the famille verte palette; the slender panels of the deep-sided, faceted cup are finely painted with birds and insects fluttering among flowering plants.
For a similar pair of steep cups, see Jeffrey P. Stamen and Cynthia Volk, A Culture Revealed: Kangxi-Era Chinese Porcelain from the Jie Rui Tang Collection, 2017, p. 149, no. 58.
A stem cup (also known as a stem bowl; in Chinese gaozu bei 高足杯) is a high-footed cup, consisting of a small hemispherical or slightly flaring bowl set on a slender stem terminating in a small foot ring. Depending on the period, such vessels served several functions. They were commonly used as wine cups, particularly in courtly and ceremonial contexts. Stem cups were also employed as offering vessels on altars and in temples, their elevated form being especially suited to ritual presentation. In certain contexts, they functioned as objects of display, the raised profile lending itself to the appreciation of the enamel decoration and, where present, calligraphy.
The form dates back to lacquer and metal prototypes known since the Tang dynasty. The Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties all added to the tradition with related stem cups made in porcelain, largely from Jingdezhen. Thus, there was a long tradition of creating drinking cups in this elegant form by the time these were made. Contemporaries would have easily been able to interpret the decoration, understanding the significance of each flower and how the addition of a specific type of bird or insect would result in a pun rebus of benevolent meaning.