Northern Song Dynasty, A.D. 10th–11th Century
of almost spherical form, the high domed cover pierced with ‘cash’ diaper around the sides and with a stylized flowerhead with central aperture at the top, with wide rim neatly fitted over the inset lip of the hemispherical base raised on a short cylindrical standard and domed pedestal support with spreading foot, with four oval quatrefoil openings evenly spaced around the sides of the foot, covered with a transparent glaze inside and out, the interior of the base and underside of the foot unglazed showing the fine white porcelain.
Height 6 inches (15.2 cm)
From the Collection of Walter Hochstadter (1914–2007), recorded as having been acquired in Shanghai in the late 1950s to early 1960s
A Song glazed white porcelain pedestal censer of ovoid form with high domed cover similarly pierced, excavated at Taiyuan city, Shanxi province and now in the Shanxi Provincial Museum, is illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji (7) Song, shang (The Complete Works of Chinese Ceramics, Vol. 7, Song, I), Shanghai, 2000, p. 214, no. 215, with caption on p. 284.
Another smaller Northern Song white porcelain spherical censer of this type is illustrated by Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume One, London, 1994, pp. 196–197, no. 345.
Similar pierced porcelain pedestal censers with pale bluish ‘yingqing’ glaze were produced at Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province during the Song dynasty. Compare, for example, the censer illustrated by Tseng and Dart, The Charles B. Hoyt Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts: Boston, Vol. II, Boston, 1972, no. 64.
北宋 白瓷透雕香薰 高 15.2 厘米
Northern Song Dynasty, A.D. 10th–11th Century
Height 6 inches (15.2 cm)