Page 151 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

TS COMPRESSED GLOBULAR BODY divided vertically into six lobes,
this covered censer stands on three cabriole legs. The short neck
I rises from the relief, double-chrysanthemum collar that encircles
the shoulder, its emphatic vertical lip expanding to receive the reticulated
cover. Two applique handles, each in the form of a cut tree branch with
two serrated leaves, a five-petaled blossom, and a small bud, appear at
right and left on the body of the censer. Large in proportion to the vessel,
the handles are attached at the shoulder with pins; their blossoms rise to
the top of the lip, while their branches project outward to facilitate lifting.
A third handle, of virtually identical size and shape, crowns the slightly
domed cover, attached with pins to the unpierced disk at the cover's
center. Appearing within a slightly sunken quatrefoil panel and set against
a ring-punched ground, a low-relief floral motif ornaments each of the
censer's six lobes. The flowers represented include the tree peony (mudan
hua), flowering plum (me/ hua), orchid (Ian hua), and chrysanthemum (ju
hua), with the plum and chrysanthemum each appearing twice; some panels
also include a bird or butterfly. A wide, undecorated border frames each
panel. The elaborately textured panels contrast with the otherwise undeco-
rated walls which surround them. An incised vegetal scroll encircles the lip
while an openwork vegetal scroll graces the cover. The gold has worn away
in a few areas - at the top of the lip, for example, and in the high-relief por-
tions of the floral designs - exposing the warm reddish orange tones of the
copper beneath.
Censers of this type descend from the //-shaped censers popular
during the Xuande era. Such early Ming tripod censers share the Clague
censer's cabriole legs, constricted neck, and wide, emphatic lip; as pictured
in Xuande yiqi tupu, however, they differ in having tri-lobed bodies, twisted-
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vine handles, and undecorated walls. Xuande-period examples apparently
lacked covers as well. Through such early Ming bronzes, the Clague censer
traces its lineage to Song-dynasty ceramic censers of li and li-ding form in
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guan 2 and Longquan celadon ware, and thence to the Western Zhou li and
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li-ding bronze vessels from which the Song ceramics derive. Even if Xuande-
period //-shaped censers lacked them, many Ming-dynasty censers had
covers, more than surviving numbers might indicate since many have been
lost, but the use of covers increased dramatically during the Qing. Open-
work covers not only created patterns in the rising smoke but afforded a
measure of protection from fire by preventing exploding embers from
bursting out of the censer.

T I I E R O B E R T II. C L A G U E C O L L E C T I O N 4 7