Page 177 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

arrangement clearly a carefully considered element of the design. The
most prized secular censers of the day - spherical ones of gold, silver, 8 and
9
bronze - often have openwork floral designs. A ninth or tenth-century Xing
porcelain circular box in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, has an open-
10
work cover with a swastika in the center surrounded by a floral scroll. An
auspicious Buddhist emblem and an abbreviation of the character wan, or
'ten thousand,' the reticulated swastika on the Kempe box is the distant
ancestor of the formalized patterns on the cover of this censer, while the
openwork floral scroll is the remote forebear of the designs on the cover
of the Clague Collection's gilt copper censer [29]. The pattern of inter-
locked T's on the present cover recalls similar geometric patterns on
Warring States-period textiles and bronze mirrors. 11
This censer was integrally cast with its footring and medial ridge;
riveted into place, the elephant-head handles were also cast, though their
eyes were cold worked. The cover too was cast, but its openwork patterns
were cold worked, as indicated by the telltale chisel marks and by the
slightly irregular spacing of the design elements. Carved with hammer and
chisel, the reign mark on the base was also entirely cold worked. The gold
splashes are unusually thick, suggesting that they may have been applied
through a method other than the mercury-amalgam method; in some cases,
their appearance suggests that molten gold might have been dabbed on
the surface in carefully configured patterns. The tea-colored hue of the
bronze appears to have been achieved through the application of a rust-
brown coating.

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 3