A fine wucai 'rose' month cup, Mark and period of Kangxi | 清康熙 五彩月季花花神盃 《大清康熙年製》款

The poem on the present cup, as well as lot 3627, can be translated as follows:

    Unlike a thousand other species that tire out,

This one alone blazes in red throughout the year.

Month cups depicting seasonal flowers accompanied by pertinent two-line poems, represent a classic design of the Kangxi period. Very delicately potted, they are painted in the proper wucai palette of underglaze blue and overglaze enamels, which was devised in the Ming dynasty, but rarely used in the Qing, when the underglaze colour was generally omitted. On these month cups the designs are generally sketched on the unglazed porcelain in a faint underglaze blue.

Slight differences in size, colours, writing styles and marks between individual cups and different months suggest that even these cups may not have been produced as sets of twelve, but perhaps issued consecutively, as the year evolved, to be assembled at the end. 

此品與拍品編號3627均應為十月花神盃，畫苔蘚遍野，長月季一株，艷放嫣紅，懸空曲莖婉轉流麗，背有筆挺帶刺枝條，旁有矮叢，結鈷青果子，並見各色蝴蝶，穿梭飛舞花間。詩題：「不隨千種盡，獨放一年紅。」

花神盃，繪四時花卉，書題畫詩二句，乃康熙朝瓷作經典。五彩，自明有之，包括鈷青及釉上彩，至清時，釉下彩料卻漸被忽略。康熙花神盃，坯冶精妙細膩，皆先以釉下淡青在坯上起草勾勒，沿襲明風，巧飾傳統五彩調子。

花神盃雖說成組，各盃在尺寸、顏色、書風和款識上，皆略有差異，別於其他月份之盃，暗示它們可能並非成套生產，而是逐一燒造，最後才湊合成組。