天价“鸡缸杯”将现身苏富比春拍(图

　　Among the deep-pocketed collectors of Chinese antique ceramics, few pieces arouse as much excitement as the small Ming dynasty-era bowls commonly known as the 'chicken cups.'

　　在中国古代瓷器收藏圈里，鲜有藏品能够像明成化“鸡缸杯”(chicken cup)那样引得一众富豪收藏家趋之若鹜。

　　The bowls, small enough to be held comfortably in the palm of the hand, were created between 1465 and 1487 and are named for the chickens painted on their sides. Only 19 are known to exist, and of those just four are in private hands, with the rest in museum collections.

　　鸡缸杯不足一掌大小，烧制于明代成化时期(公元1465至1487年)，因其杯壁上画有公鸡母鸡，故称鸡缸杯。现存于世的鸡缸杯只有19只，其中四只在私人藏家手中，其余均被博物馆收藏。

　　

But one of those four will be going up for sale on April 8 at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong and is estimated to fetch as much as US$38.5 million.

　　但这四只鸡缸杯中将有一只现身4月8日的香港苏富比(Sotheby)拍卖会，估价高达3,850万美元。

　　Part of the Meiyintang collection owned by Switzerland's Zuellig family, this same bowl was also the last chicken cup to go up for auction, in 1999. At a Sotheby's sale in Hong Kong, it brought US$3.7 million -- at the time, a record for a Chinese porcelain.

　　这只明成化斗彩鸡缸杯是瑞士裕利(Zuellig)家族“玫茵堂”(Meiyintang)的藏品，1999年最后一次现身拍卖会的鸡缸杯也正是这一只。在当年的香港苏富比拍卖会上，这只鸡缸杯拍出了370万美元的天价，刷新中国瓷器世界拍卖纪录。

　　Prices for Chinese ceramics have skyrocketed since, but reverence for these cups has remained constant since imperial times. Several works of Chinese literature reference the chicken cups, often describing how emperors and nobles spent fortunes to obtain them in the 17th century.

　　此后中国瓷器价格一路飙高，但鸡缸杯的尊贵地位自帝王时代以来从未被动摇。几部中国文学作品曾经提到过鸡缸杯，均是描写17世纪的皇帝和贵族如何散尽千金，就为得到这样一只小小的杯子。