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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Ming Dynasty tea cup

In what I'm calling a spur of the moment, but well thought out purchase, I acquired a Ming dynasty teacup. Now I say this was thought out as, I had intended and made steps towards purchasing some teacups from the Qing dynasty as that seemed the oldest I could afford. And I still plan on purchasing those cups as the ones I requested were cup shapes that I feel are best for aged oolong, and wuyi oolong. Yet this was spur of the moment as I was linked to an ebay sellers page, who sells antique Ming dynasty everyday porcelain, her father collected while living in Southeast Asia for business.


Now I honestly have no real way to authenticate this cup, as there is no makers mark, or even factory mark. I only have clues which lead me to believe that this is old (though I can not say how old). First if you look closely at the pictures you will notice the cup is not round, or even flat on top. This is very common in antique porcelain from China, especially since they did not have today's factory's which can be exacting to some awfully small faction of a milimeter. This also has an unglazed ring, and several minor defects in the glazing on the outside of the piece. I should note the unglazed ring on the bottom of the cup was darker, but I put it through a thorough cleaning which included sitting in diluted bleach for several hours.

Here are two pictures of it in action with Late 90's Grand Yellow Label, which I hope to pick up a cake of early next month.





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