Small cup on footring, straight everted sides. Decorated in underglaze blue with a scholar and his servant in a landscape with rocks and bamboo. Inside around the rim a wide band with spirals, in the centre the four-character mark Yongle in archaic script. As the small saucer, cat. 42{}, such cups (without saucers) were also primarily intended for China and the inter-Asian markets. The use of archaic script for the inscription Yongle nian zhi (made during the Yongle period) is interesting. This Ming emperor ruled from 1403–1424. Such apocryphal marks were meant to accentuate the quality of a piece, or were used to indicate a style comparable to that of wares manufactured during a particular emperor’s reign. Spirals such as those seen here are actually found on early Ming ware.