J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

The inscription cast on the base may be read as: 紹興二年大寧廠臣蘇漢臣監督姜氏鑄至德壇用, which may be translated as: “In the second year of Shaoxing (1132), under the supervision of Officer Su Hancheng at the Da’ning workshop, Madame Jiang cast [this item] for the Zhide Altar.”

A bronze incense burner in the collection of the National Palace Museum, Taipei with the same inscription cast on the base is illustrated by Fong and Watt in the Metropolitan Museum exhibition catalogue Possessing the Past: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei, New York, 1996, p. 225, pl. 99, where authors describe this group of archaic style bronzes cast with the same inscription, op. cit. p. 228 as follows: “The most famous name in bronze casting in the Southern Song period is that of Chiang Niang-tzu (Madame Chiang). We know that the Chiang family workshop continued through the Yuan dynasty, as there are references to Chiang-style bronzes used as models in casting ritual vessels in the Hsuan-te reign (1426-35) in the early Ming period. Today there is no surviving work that can be reliably attributed to this family.” A number of archaic style bronzes of different shapes and styles cast with the same inscription are recorded by Wang Shichen (1634-1711) in his book of miscellaneous notes, the Chu-i Lu, published in 1701.

Two yellow paper labels of unknown origin on the interior of the vessel follow the format of imperial inventory labels.