成化鬪彩享譽中國陶瓷史，自古稀貴難求。近年研究表明，此類高足盃與建福宮大火實有關聯。1992年大英博物館熒光分析及2008年論證文獻均指出闘彩失彩乃因困於猛火，若以錦盒、木匣之類封存，遇火形成還原氣氛，尤致失彩。
香港顯赫私人收藏
明成化 鬪彩果樹雙禽圖高足盃
《大明成化年製》款
November 26, 03:00 PM JST
Estimate
8,000,000 - 16,000,000 HKD
Property from a Distinguished Hong Kong Private Collection
An exceedingly rare doucai 'bird' stem cup,
Mark and period of Chenghua
h. 7.9 cm
Provenance
Bluett & Sons, purchased from Scaramanga, 24th February 1960.
Collection of Lord Cunliffe (1899-1963), no. PM134, purchased from Bluett & Sons, 8th June 1960.
Bonhams London, 11th November 2002, lot 69.
Christie's Hong Kong, 28th November 2006, lot 1521.
來源：
Bluett & Sons，1960年2月24日購於 Scaramanga
肯禮夫勛爵（1899-1963年）收藏，編號 PM134，1960年6月8日購於 Bluett & Sons
倫敦邦瀚斯2002年11月11日，編號69
香港佳士得2006年11月28日，編號1521
Literature
Julian Thompson, The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, pl. 24.
出版：
朱湯生，《中國瓷器：莊紹綏收藏》，香港，2009年，圖版24
豔以焰成
成化鬪彩片羽
成化鬪彩高足盃淬浴熾焰，出落脫塵，因匠心臻備，尤得帝王珍愛。今人視之，想其窰中演蛻，如見晞暉破暗暝，更嘆渾沌蘊新生。
成化鬪彩享譽中國陶瓷史，自古稀貴難求。鬪彩瓷僅於1480年前後十年間產燒，精益求精，屬御窰彩瓷早期成就。成器形制簡雅，尤宜掌上把玩。器面先以釉下青花勾勒輪廓，再於釉上施填諸彩，群色爭妍鬥豔，技藝登峰造極，後六百年，無出其右。
此盃繪兩對鳥兒棲於果樹花枝，為成窰風采之典範。賞瓷之人素愛「雞」、「葡萄」等紋所帶田園情致及繽紛色彩，花鳥紋則更秀雅。朱湯生曾述，縱觀成化青花及鬪彩，此例既不描邊線，又不於足脛上作竹節式凸棱，佈局極簡，將果樹花鳥投於潔白素地上，有豁達無拘之感，更叩和天然主題，可謂獨一無二，見朱湯生，《中國瓷器：莊紹綏收藏》，頁92。此外，圖紋主體以鈷藍繪就是其另一獨特之處。鬪彩中，釉下青花大多只勾勒輪廓，此件打破常規，以青花描繪鳥翎，設濃淡變化，如用墨於紙，令鳥兒躍然紙上。此花鳥紋或汲取自同時期繪畫，可比朱佐（活躍於1500年前後）《花鳥六段圖》，繪鳥兒枝頭成雙，仍貯故宮博物院，北京，藏品編號新00092249。
成化乃至明朝覆滅後，此類高足盃仍為宮廷所珍。雍正七年（1729年），時值成化之後兩百餘年，造辦處奉旨點驗成化高足盃六十八件，以黑漆描金匣收存，記入檔案，其中，十件記為「成窰五彩鸚鵡摘桃高足圓」。又記成化盃七十四件，非高足，另以漆盒收存，至乾隆時，漆盒改制，薰蒸除蟲，所收大多留存至今，藏台北故宮，展於《皇帝的多寶閣》，台北，2021年，頁18-29。
寶盒內所失數件從皇家散落民間，恰如此盃。王朝顛覆，宮牆傾頹，寶盒亦難全，隨時移世易，遺珍飄洋過海，終走入眾人視野。1923年6月26日夜，建福宮花園失火，傳聞火勢三日不滅，焚毀屋室百二十間。建福宮位於紫禁城西北隅，始建於乾隆七年（1742年），原供天子休閒，故有大量骨董珍玩庋藏在此。清朝覆滅後，退位皇帝溥儀仍居故宮，從英文老師莊士敦處知曉太監盜賣宮中物什，正欲對宮內陳設詳加盤點，不料著手前突發大火，不少珍寶下落不明。
火後廢墟中，除汝瓷外僅成化鬪彩先得挽救。此次失火前因蹺蹊，後果難計，僅憑莊士敦與溥儀自述略知一二。近年研究表明，此類高足盃與建福宮大火實有關聯。1992年大英博物館熒光分析及2008年論證文獻均指出闘彩失彩乃因困於猛火，若以錦盒、木匣之類封存，遇火形成還原氣氛，尤致失彩，見杜鋒、蘇寶茹，〈揭開成化闘彩「差紫」之謎〉，《中國科學》，2008年，第38卷，第9期，頁1487-1494。
查閱記錄，流散海外之成化鬪彩中已知十五件受大火影響，除一件為盤，其餘皆為高足盃，大多列於朱湯生，《The Emperor’s Broken China. Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain》，蘇富比，倫敦，1995年，頁117-8；另見五件，仍貯故宮，北京，錄《故宮博物院藏文物珍品全集：五彩．鬪彩》，香港，1999年，圖版169-172；及一件，藏中國國家博物館，北京，錄《中國國家博物館館藏文物研究叢書：瓷器卷・明代》，上海，2007年，圖版55；台北故宮亦有至少三件，錄《成化瓷器特展圖錄1465-1487》，台北，2003年，編號128、168、186。
遇火變色，或為外界視作疵瑕，而文博機構及鑒藏人士則更進一步，審其有瑕之美。孫瀛洲率先以「差紫」（一說「奼紫」）形容鬪彩呈現紫金色疵，除別具韻致，差紫更是成化鬪彩辨偽之要點，後朝仿品皆不得其色。差紫雖非成化御窰刻意所為，然鈷藍明媚，又與紫金、烏黑等諸彩相鬪，成器斑斕，美不勝收。
除此件外，僅十件同紋飾高足盃見載，含五件差紫：其一，藏北京故宮，展於《明代成化御窰瓷器》，卷下，北京，2016年，編號186；其二，屬大英博物館大維德基金會，倫敦，錄柯玫瑰與畢宗陶，《Flawless Porcelains: Imperial Ceramics from the Reign of the Chenghua Emperor》，倫敦，1995年，圖版19；其三，原 Marjorie K Coldwell 寶蓄，現大英博物館珍藏，錄霍吉淑，《Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum》，倫敦，2001年，圖版6:12；其四，吳賴熙舊藏，售於倫敦蘇富比1937年5月26日，編號78；其五，或更早遇火，藏維多利亞與艾爾伯特博物館，倫敦，藏品編號C.34-1954（圖一），博物館官網有載。
同紋飾且無色疵者可比四例，貯台北故宮，藏品編號：故瓷003625-8，其中兩件錄《明瓷名品図録》，卷中，東京，1977年，圖版57；第五例，仇焱之舊藏，售於香港蘇富比1980年11月25日，編號28，為封面拍品，近期又於香港佳士得區百齡珍藏特展示人，2024年9月22至25日。景德鎮明代御窰窰業堆積出土一例，諸彩完備，然遭損毀，展於《成窰遺珍：景德鎮珠山出土成化官窰瓷器》，徐氏藝術館，香港，1993年，編號C106。
FORGED IN FLAMES
An Extremely Rare And Important Doucai ‘Birds’ Stem Cup
Amidst the swirling chaos of flame and ash, this fine stem cup underwent a profound transformation. Once a symbol of royal ease and artisanal perfection, this rare piece of Chenghua doucai now also tells a new story: a story of beauty in darkness, a story of rebirth.
The famed doucai (‘dove-tailed colours’) wares of the Chenghua reign (1465-1487) are without a doubt among the rarest and most sought-after pieces of Chinese porcelain ever made. Produced for only a decade or so between the late 1470s and early 1480s to exacting standards, these delicate treasures were some of the earliest polychrome wares made by the imperial kiln. Chenghua doucai wares were thrown exceptionally fine in simple yet exquisite shapes that beckon the hand to take hold. Finely painted in jewel-like enamels onto outlines of underglaze blue in a playful yet refined manner, these exceptional wares remain – more than half a millennium later – truly unrivalled as the zenith of porcelain mastery.
Adorned with two pairs of peaceful birds resting on fruiting branches, the present cup is exemplary of the refined design aesthetic embraced during the Chenghua period. While connoisseurs have rightly celebrated the pastoral calm and rich colouration of more famous ‘chicken’ and ‘grape’ cups, the present design is – in many respects – even more delicate. As Julian Thompson notes, the present example is completely unique among all Chenghua wares of blue-and-white and doucai decoration alike, in featuring no line borders or stem knop to distract from the composition, allowing the quiet scene of tree-top bliss to blend seamlessly into the fine white background and owing the piece an “open, unrestricted feeling, particularly well suited to the naturalistic subject;” see Thompson, op. cit., p. 92. The present cup is similarly exceptional in its use of cobalt blue as a centrepiece of the design. Extended beyond its more typical use in doucai as an outline, the rich and varied tone of underglaze blue is celebrated at the very heart of this piece, intricately applied in a naturalistic style akin to ink on paper, to bring each characterful bird to life. Indeed, this calming avian design may well find its inspiration in contemporaneous painting. Compare a six-panel painting by Zhu Zuo (fl. ca. 1500), still preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, acc. no. xin-00092249, depicting similar pairs of birds on branches.
Stem cups of this design and others remained in the treasured possession of the imperial court long after the end of the Chenghua reign and, indeed, long after the fall of the Ming dynasty. More than two centuries later, in the seventh year of the Yongzheng reign (1729), official records of the Imperial Workshop (Zaobanchu) in Beijing note the imperial inspection of sixty-eight Chenghua stemcups stored in a black-and-gold lacquer box; of which ten are termed Chengyao wucai yingwu zhai tao gaozuyuan or ‘Cheng ware five-colour parrots plucking peaches stemcups.’ Seventy-four more Chenghua cups without stems were also placed in a neighbouring lacquer box, which was later reshaped and fumigated during the Qianlong period and preserved to this day with much of its original contents in the Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the exhibition Huangdi de duobaoge / Curio Boxes of the Qianlong Emperor, Taipei, 2021, pp 18-29.
However, this imperial palace box was not to be our vessel's final destination. Rather, the box, the palace, and the falling empire in which it stood, would soon bring new life to these cups; forging them into the treasures we now behold. On the night of 26th June 1923, a notorious fire broke out in the imperial gardens of the Jianfugong (‘Palace of Establishing Prosperity’), which was said to have lasted three days and burnt down 120 rooms. Situated at the north-western tip of the Forbidden City, the Jianfugong complex had been built by the Qianlong Emperor in 1742 as a place of private retreat and accordingly housed a large number of works of art and antiques for the Emperor’s quiet admiration. Following the end of the Qing dynasty, the abdicated Emperor of China, Puyi (1906-1967) had continued to reside in the former Imperial Palace. Alerted by his English teacher, Reginald Johnston, that palace eunuchs were selling imperial artefacts, Puyi had planned to make a full review of palace furnishings but, before the chance arrived, the fire had ‘mysteriously’ broken out and treasured pieces slipped through the ruins.
Besides some pieces of burnt Ru ware, it appears that only Chenghua doucai pieces were deemed worthy of being retrieved from the ensuing wreckage. Though precise details of this transformative fire and its impact have mostly been lost to history – preserved only in passing in the personal accounts of Johnston and Puyi – recent studies of similar stem cups have confirmed the transformative role of the palace flames. An X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis by the British Museum in 1992 and a corroborating 2008 article both suggest that discoloured doucai pieces of this type show evidence of being in a fire, particularly in the reducing atmosphere produced if stored in fabric-lined or wooden boxes; see Du Feng and Su Baoru, ‘Jiekai Chenghua doucai “chazi” zhi mi [Uncovering the mystery of Chenghua doucai “chazi”]’, Science in China, 2008, vol. 38, no. 9, pp 1487-1494.
At least fifteen Chenghua doucai vessels similarly affected by fire are recorded outside China – all stem cups apart from one dish – mostly listed by Julian Thompson in The Emperor's Broken China. Reconstructing Chenghua Porcelain, Sotheby's, London, 1995, pp 117-8; while at least five others remained treasured in the Palace Museum, Beijing, see The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelains in Polychrome and Contrasting Colours, Hong Kong, 1999, pls 169-172; another in the National Museum of China, Beijing, in Zhongguo Guojia Bowuguan guancang wenwu yanjiu congshu / Studies on the Collections of the National Museum of China. Ciqi juan, Mingdai [Porcelain section, Ming dynasty], Shanghai, 2007, pl. 55; and three or more in the Palace Museum, Taipei, see Chenghua ciqi tezhan tulu / Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Ch’eng-hua Porcelain Ware, 1465-1487, Taipei, 2003, probably cat. nos 128, 168, 186.
While one may have been tempted to dismiss such a violent metamorphosis as simple ‘damage,’ museums, connoisseurs and collectors alike have long embraced a more radical and elevated approach to these ‘imperfect’ vessels. First coined by the celebrated scholar-collector Sun Yingzhou (1893-1966), the metallic purple and brown colouration of these transformed pieces soon became known as chazi (lit. ‘missing’ or ‘gorgeous’ purple) and celebrated for its captivating tone and as a sign of truly authentic pieces of Chenghua doucai, unrepeated (or perhaps unrepeatable) in later replicas. While not the colouration intended by the imperial potters of Chenghua’s time, this tranquil yet dramatic chazi palette of bright cobalt blue emerging from leaves of silvery-purple and jet black has now long been praised for its beauty: an unforeseen gem emerging from the ashes.
Only ten other surviving stem cups of this design appear to be recorded, five of which have been preserved with chazi colouration: one in the Palace Museum, Beijing, included in the exhibition Imperial Porcelains from the Reign of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty, vol. II, Beijing, 2016, cat. no. 186; the second from the collection of the Percival David Foundation at the British Museum, London, illustrated in Rosemary Scott and Stacey Pierson, Flawless Porcelains: Imperial Ceramics from the Reign of the Chenghua Emperor, London, 1995, pl. 19; the third, from the collection of Marjorie K Coldwell, also in the British Museum, illustrated in Jessica Harrison-Hall, Catalogue of Late Yuan and Ming Ceramics in the British Museum, London, 2001, pl. 6:12; the fourth, from the collection of Wu Laixi, sold in our London rooms, 26th May 1937, lot 78; and the fifth, likely burnt in an earlier fire, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. C.34-1954 (fig. 1), illustrated on the museum’s website.
For examples of this design retaining their original colouration, compare the four stem cups preserved in the Palace Museum, Taipei, acc. nos gu ci-003625-8, two of which are illustrated in Minji meihin zuroku [Illustrated catalogue of important Ming porcelains], vol. II, Tokyo, 1977, pl. 57; and the fifth from the collection of E. T. Chow, sold as the cover lot in these rooms, 25th November 1980, lot 28, and recently exhibited at Christie’s Hong Kong as part of the Au Bak Ling Collection, 22nd-25th September 2024. Another fully coloured but deliberately broken example of this type, excavated from the waste heaps of the Ming imperial kilns site at Jingdezhen, was included in groundbreaking exhibition A Legacy of Chenghua: Imperial Porcelain of the Chenghua Reign Excavated from Zhushan, Jingdezhen, The Tsui Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1993, cat. no. C106.
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