Page 114 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

Qing-dynasty representations of the 'foreign lotus' tend to have both a
greater number of petals and a longer stalk with several leaves. 23 In Wanli
fashion, the jar is interpreted as a guan with a lotus-leaf-shaped cover, a
pushou-mask handle on its shoulder, and a ring of bosses around its base.
In Qing-dynasty examples, the jar tends to be ornamental rather than utili-
tarian, having a distinct footring as well as surface decoration 24 [compare
22]. One of several umbrella types, the jeweled umbrella first appeared
during the Yongle era but remained popular throughout the Ming and Qing;
the fashioning of the tops of the umbrella and the canopy to resemble a
lotus leaf - thus making them harmonize with the lotus blossom and with the
cover of the guan jar - also points to a late Ming date for this censer. In
addition, the Clague censer follows late Ming fashion in setting the emblems
against an unembellished background, omitting the fluttering ribbons asso-
ciated with eighteenth-century representations [compare 22] and the floral
scrolls typical of nineteenth-century depictions.
It remains uncertain whether Xuande censers were ever ornamented
with the 'Eight Auspicious Emblems.' Logic would argue that they were not,
since such censers were supposedly modeled on Song aristocratic ceramics
and on representations of archaic bronzes in Song catalogs, neither of which
carried the 'Eight Auspicious Emblems' motif. In addition, Xuande yiqi tupu
does not picture any bronzes with the bajixiang motif nor does Xuande
dingyi pu list any with a motif so named. Still, Xuande dingyi pu mentions, 25
and Xuande yiqi tupu illustrates, 26 censers decorated with siddham (auspi-
cious Buddhist syllables written in an Indie script), indicating that Xuande
censers were sometimes embellished with Buddhist motifs; in addition,
27
Xuande blue-and-white porcelains occasionally depict the 'Eight Auspicious
Emblems,' so it is possible, even if unlikely, that Xuande bronzes might have
featured them as well. Wen Zhenheng's comment in his Zhangwu zhi of 1637
that bronze censers with bajixiang decoration are vulgar and thus to be
28
avoided in the scholar's studio indicates that such items were both plentiful
and popular by the early seventeenth century.

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