Page 175 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

RNAMENTED WITH A PAIR OF HANDLES in the form of elephant
heads, this covered censer comprises a circular bowl resting on a
O footring of medium height. The bowl has a slightly constricted
midsection and a gently flaring lip; a raised band encircles the bowl just
below its midsection, emphasizing its bombe form. A wide, slightly concave
lip borders the cover, while an openwork pattern of interlocking T's embel-
lishes its subtly domed central portion. A flange on the underside secures
the cover in place when set atop the censer. Gold splashes in small, medium,
and large sizes enliven the bowl and its cover, footring, and base. A carved
reign mark of six relief characters in a slightly sunken rectangular cartouche
appears in the center of the base. A tea-brown coating on the exterior sur-
faces of both censer and cover conceals the brassy color of the bronze.

Claiming a Xuande date for the censer, the six-character mark reading
Da Ming Xuandenian zhi on the base is spurious, as indicated by the use of
the dictionary form of the character de (second ideograph in Xuande) with
the horizontal stroke at its center that is invariably absent from genuine
Xuande marks in all media [see discussion, 31]. The style of the calligraphy
derives from Kangxi marks rather than from Xuande marks, as a comparison
of the last two characters, nian zhi, with the same characters in the genuine
Kangxi mark on the following vase [36] reveals. In fact, the present mark's
alternation between thick strokes and ones so thin they appear spindly
points to a nineteenth-century date of manufacture.
With its circularfoot, bowl-shaped container, and animal-head handles,
this censer descends ultimately from late Shang and early Western Zhou
ritual bronze gui vessels, which in antiquity were used for offerings of
boiled grain. The relief band about the midsection finds no locus classicus
among Bronze Age vessels, however, suggesting the possibility of influence
from less ancient models as well; in fact, one variety of bowl crafted in silver 1
and ceramic ware, 2 and presumably also in bronze, during the Tang dynasty
displays a virtually identical profile, the rounded ridge on this censer corre-
sponding to a similar ridge on the ceramic bowls and to a crest on the silver
ones. 3 Like the previous vase [34], this censer finds inspiration for its shape,
and perhaps for its splashed decoration, in the arts of the Tang.
Despite its Xuande mark, this censer seems to reflect little relation-
ship to the Xuande bronze tradition. Xuande yiqi tupu does not illustrate
any censers of this shape, for example, nor does Xuande dingyi pu describe
any that resemble it. In addition, the Tang-style shape argues against an
early Ming connection, suggesting instead that the form was newly invented

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 1 7 1