Page 124 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

TANDING ON THREE COLUMNAR LEGS,this small, unassuming censer
has a stepped cylindrical bowl with a shallow, rounded bottom. The
S bowl's undecorated vertical walls constrict at midpoint to form a
narrow, horizontal ledge and then continue their assent upward to the
short, vertical lip whose perimeter expands to match the diameter of the
bowl's lower portion. A small ledge encircles the interior of the lip, sug-
gesting that the censer might once have had a removeable bronze cover.
Appearing at right and left in the recessed channel, handles in the form of
simplified lion heads with curly manes anchor the fixed bronze rings that
overlap the lower part of the censer. Open on their undersides, the hollow,
columnar legs issue from the mouths of maned lion heads that face down-
ward from the lower edge of the bowl. A mark in six kaishu (standard-script)
characters arranged in three columns of two characters each appears in a
recessed rectangular cartouche in the center of the otherwise plain base.
The legs are undecorated, as is the interior of the bowl. Chemically induced
after casting, the warm chestnut-brown surfaces conceal the brassy color
of the metal. In Qianlong style but of uncertain date, a fitted hardwood
cover [not shown] with a knob of orange soapstone and a hardwood stand
[not shown] with three legs accompany this censer.
Despite its Xuande mark, this censer dates to the Qing dynasty,
probably to the eighteenth century; in this case an illustration in the 1526
Xuande yiqi tupu confirms that the mark accurately signals descent from
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Xuande bronzes. Termed a jingding \u, or 'wellhead ding' censer, the illus-
trated vessel boasts a stepped cylindrical bowl, an expanding lip, two
maned lion-head handle mounts, and three columnar legs. Differing from
the Clague piece, its recessed channel, placed higher in proportion to the
bowl, constitutes the censer's neck and its horizontal ledge the vessel's
shoulder; in addition, its slightly tapering columnar legs descend directly
from the bottom of the bowl without animal head mounts, and its lion-head
handles - each with a moveable ring - appear on the bowl proper, just
below the horizontal shoulder. The similarities underscore the relationship
between the two pieces, but the differences clearly indicate that the Clague
piece was not copied directly from Xuande yiqi tupu. Comments in Xuande
yiqi tupu indicate that some censers were originally furnished with wooden
covers and stands [see discussion, 24].
Although the bowl, legs, and handles of this censer were integrally
cast, the handles and leg mounts were extensively cold worked after casting.
Both the abbreviated style and the numerous chisel marks indicate that
the lion-head handles were given their present form entirely through cold

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C H I N A ' S R E N A I S S A N C E IN B R O N Z E