A PARCEL-GILT BRONZE INCENSE BURNER / J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York

Past Exhibition

ELEGANTLY MADE: Art for the Chinese Literati

March 13-27, 2020

16.
A PARCEL-GILT BRONZE INCENSE BURNER

Mark and Period of Hongwu (1368-1398)

of quadrilobed form heavily cast in high relief with boys in long-sleeved robes standing on stylized clouds accompanied by flying cranes in barrel-rounded oval panels framed by foliate scroll surrounds also in high relief below a narrow beaded collar and a running band of cloud motifs under the thick everted rim of the wide circular mouth decorated on the outer edge with archaic style leiwen and flanked by a pair of smiling boys standing on the shoulder and holding onto the lip to serve as handles, all raised on four short legs each emerging from the jaws of a horned lion head, the decoration all fire-gilt and raised above a smooth background of rich dark brown color showing scattered remains of cold-painted gilding, the gently rounded base cast with a six character reign mark of Hongwu in a reserved rectangle.

Width across handles 8 ³⁄₈ inches (21.2 cm)
Height 6 inches (15.3 cm)
Weight 2869g

Provenance
Sydney L. Moss Ltd., London, 1976
Collection of Dr. Peter H. Plesch (1918-2013)
Shuisongshi Shanfang Collection

Published
Watson, ‘Categories of Post-Yuan Decorative Bronzes,’ Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, 1981-1982, Vol. 46, p. 25 (not illustrated)

No other Hongwu marked gilt-bronze censer of this rare design is known, but one other unmarked bronze censer of very similar quardrilobed form raised on four lion mask-and-paw supports and decorated in high relief with boys flanking indecipherable Tibetan characters or Daoist glyphs within foliate scroll frames was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 November 1999, lot 781, attributed to the Yuan dynasty.

A carved jade group of two boys flanking a cong shape vessel is published by Watt, Chinese Jades from Han to Ch’ing, New York, 1980, p. 163, no. 136, attributed to Yuan – Ming (13th – 15th centuries A.D.).

Compare the carved jade bowl with a pair of female angels standing on clouds and holding on to the rim to serve as handles in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated by Yang (ed.), Zhongguo yuqi quanji (Compendium of Chinese Jades), Vol. 5, Sui, Tang to Ming Dynasties, Shijiazhuang, 1993, p. 120, no. 181, attributed to Yuan dynasty. Another carved jade bowl very similar to the example in the Palace Museum, Beijing is in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, illustrated by Lee and Ho, Chinese Art Under the Mongols: The Yüan Dynasty (1279-1368), Cleveland, 1968, no. 298, attributed to Yuan dynasty.

明洪武　灑金銅仙童四足爐　寬 21.2 厘米　高 15.3 厘米
　　　　「大明洪武年製」款
　　　　爐重 2869g

來源　倫敦 Sydney L. Moss Ltd.，1976 年
　　　Dr. Peter H. Plesch (1918-2013) 舊藏
　　　水松石山房藏

出版　Watson, ‘Categories of Post-Yuan Decorative Bronzes’ 倫敦
　　　〈東方陶瓷學會年刊〉1981-1982，46 期，第 25 頁 (無圖)

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