Chinese Art A porcelain Yangcai cupChina, Qing dynasty, 19th century . . Cm 15,00 x 8,00. White porcelain bowl with refined polychrome decoration of rocks and peony flower branches. This cup, which can be included in the so-called “pink family”, or Yancai in Chinese, evokes the production of this genre that flourished in China under the reign of Yongzheng (1722-1735). Yancai porcelain, literally "foreign colors", is a generic term used to identify all porcelains with pink pigment, which is the "foreign" color, made with precious colloidal gold, imported into China by the Jesuits. The pink color, able to give a touch of soft elegance and refined exoticism, was used for a great variety of porcelain vessels, both for the domestic and for export market to Europe. The growing interest of the court for this new palette of colors led the potters to create true masterpieces of virtuosity characterized by rarefied compositions, always based on the perfect balance of shapes and colors. The favorite themes, typically imaginary naturalistic landscapes with rocks and flowering plants, refer to complex linguistic games, poems or auspices, based on the homophony of the painted subjects.