Close up of the Chenghua Chicken Cup Photo: IC

Liu Yiqian drinks from the antique Chenghua Chicken Cup he purchased for $36.12 million. Photo: Courtesy of Sotheby's HK

After sweeping media headlines in April, famous Chinese mainland collector Liu Yiqian and his Ming Dynasty Chenghua period (1465-87) chicken cup have been pushed once again into the spotlight. Only this time, it's not the phenomenal price of HK$280 million ($36.12 million) that Liu bid at Sotheby's HK that has amazed the public, but what he has done with his prize.

Last Friday, during the hand over ceremony for the porcelain "chicken cup" that he purchased, Liu casually used the historic treasure to enjoy a cup of tea, a move that unexpectedly kicked off a debate throughout the Internet as many saw this as disrespectful to China's history and culture.

The picture showing him enjoying a sip of tea from the cup has spread everywhere on the Internet, with some netizens joking that this was probably the most expensive cup of tea in history.

Although Liu later stressed to the media that decision was really a spontaneous urge brought about by the rich history and imperial heritage that the cup embodied, many people have taken to calling him a tuhao - a sarcastic name for someone who is rich but uneducated.

Legendary chicken cup

As the president of the Long Museum, a private art museum in Shanghai, Liu differs from other domestic collectors in that every move he makes at auctions tends to be put under the microscope by the media and art lovers on the Internet. Having successfully bought plenty of rare national treasures such as a chair belonging to an emperor, Liu stated that this was the first time he has actually used one of the antiques that he owns.

Small porcelain tea cups depicting the roosters and hens for which they are named, chicken cups made during the Chenghua period are extremely rare. Created using a technique first developed during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) known as dou cai, or "fighting colors," the vivid pictures on the outside of the cups were seen as the highest level of skill for this technique. An extremely complicated and delicate process, porcelain makers first used a blue colored glaze to sketch an outline of the design on the unfired clay body of the cup, which was then covered in a layer of clear glaze and fired in a kiln. Upon removal the cup would be allowed to cool, and then the artist would use glazes in other colors such as red and yellow to fill in the blue outlined designs, after which the cup would be fired in a kiln a second time. As a result of this technique the primary colors painted over the first layer of glaze stand out in sharp contrast to the blue outlines painted under the layer of glaze, and it is this sharp contrast between the two layers that leads to the technique's name "fighting colors."

As to this antiques rarity, it's commonly believed that there are only 10 of these Chenghua cups left in the world, with four of them in the hands of private collectors and the other six in museums outside of the Chinese mainland.

The history of this particular cup is also rather legendary. Considered a fake at the time, Hong Kong collector Qiu Yanzhi first purchased the cup for HK$1,000 back in 1949. Later in the 1950s, the cup was bought by London collector Mrs Leopold Dreyfus, and then by Sotheby's HK in the 1980s where the cup was later sold for HK$5.28 million to the famous Japanese collector Sakamoto Goro.

The next big sale of this chicken cup came in 1999, once again at the Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong. This time the cup was bought at the sky-high price of HK$29.17 million, a record for any Chinese porcelain at that time, by Swiss collectors the Zuillig Brothers.

Perhaps it was this clear collection lineage that inspired Liu to offer such a phenomenal price for the cup, when he could have easily bought several hundred replicas off of taobao.com.

When is a cup not a cup?

Unexpectedly, Liu's little sip of tea has actually had an interesting influence on this replica market. Ranging from several yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, savvy online shopkeepers are taking advantage of this scandal to sell replicas of the chicken cup. A quick search for "Ji Gang Bei" (chicken cup) on taobao.com gives over 800 items, with some sellers even using the slogan: For a very affordable price, now you too can experience the feeling of the ancient emperors and a tuhao who can throw away 280 million yuan!

Although seen as a national treasure due to its rarity and links to imperial culture, chicken cups by their very nature are meant to be part of a tea set. As such, Liu is actually not the first collector to use one of these antiques to drink tea, as famous domestic collector Ma Weidu once stated that he had the honor of drinking from one of these cups at the home of one of his Japanese friends who was a porcelain collector.

This is also not the first time Liu has been involved in controversy. Just a few months ago, arguments over the authenticity of calligraphy work Gong Fu Tie by the Song Dynasty (960-1279) poet and calligrapher Su Shi (1037-1101) raged throughout art circles when Liu bought the item from Sotheby's NY for more than 50 million yuan ($8 million).

However, then like now, this controversy has actually been of some benefit to Liu as it has helped his Long Museum become even more well known across the nation. Meanwhile, in a way, his controversial decision has also raised Chinese people's awareness about this tiny yet famous cup, while at the same time allowing it to live out its "life purpose." After all, it can only be called a cup when its owner uses it.