This cup is painted in an unusual pale silvery blue with a scholarly Immortal, probably Li Bai, seated on a cliff by a waterfall cascading from a rocky face, his right hand holding a scroll, his left hand on a pile of books. The underside is painted with the Wanli six-character mark and with grasses and lingzhi.

While a later date was suggested to the Duberlys by a collector, the general opinion of the specialists in the 1960s was that this piece was late in the Wanli period and genuine. Major Duberly wrote: “The decoration probably represents Li T’ai-Po (also know as Li Bai), the drunken poet”.

Literature: Anthony du Boulay, The Duberly Collection of Chinese Art at Winchester College (Winchester, 2019), p. 35

Provenance: Bequeathed as part of the Duberly Collection, 1978; purchased by Major Montagu and Lady Eileen Duberly from John Sparks (£94); formerly in the Collection of H.R.N. Norton, sold Sotheby’s, London,  26 March 1963, lot 45

Location: Treasury, Gallery 2