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

A similar glazed white stoneware censer is illustrated by Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume Three (II), London, 2006, p. 380, no. 1381, attributed to the Sui dynasty, Hebei province.

Another smaller white stoneware censer of very similar form with transparent glaze of pale greenish tone, excavated from the tomb of Li Jingxun (d. A.D. 608) at Xi’an, Shaanxi province is illustrated in Tang Chang-an chengjiao Sui Tang mu (Excavation of the Sui and Tang Tombs at Xi’an), Beijing, 1980, pl. XVI-2. The same censer is also illustrated in Qiannian Xingyao (Xing kiln in its Millennium), Beijing, 2007, p. 194.

A straw-glazed pottery censer of larger size pierced with foliate roundels between the clusters of pierced slots, from the Avery Brundage Collection, now in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, is illustrated by He Li in Chinese Ceramics: The New Standard Guide, London, 1996, pl. 127, where the author notes the aristocratic practice of fumigating clothing by the use of censers. A straw-glazed pottery tomb figure of a female attendant holding a domed and slotted censer, also from the Avery Brundage Collection and now in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is illustrated by He Li, ibid, pl. 129.

Another pottery tomb figure of a female attendant holding a censer of similar form, discovered near Sha Chang, Yube, Anyang in the tomb of Zhang Sheng, dated to A.D. 595 is illustrated by Tregear (ed.), Arts of China, Neolithic Cultures to the Tang Dynasty—Recent Discoveries, Tokyo, 1968, p. 184, fig. 352.