Page 72 - Bonhams, Fine Chinese Art, London November 3, 2022

Image courtesy of the Shenyang Palace Museum

This ‘elephant’ incense burner exhibits the outstanding quality of It is most likely that the present incense burner would have formed
enamelling and casting at the highest level, which is characteristic part of a pair, which would have been placed in one of the Qing Palace
of cloisonné enamel vessels made in the Palace workshops. The halls; see for example the set of four large incense burners in the Qing
exceptional result was due to the technical virtuosity achieved at the Court Collection with tripod elephant-head feet, in situ at the Palace Of
cloisonné enamel ateliers during the Qianlong reign; exceptionally Heavenly Purity, Qianqinggong (乾清宮), illustrated in Classics of the
demonstrated in the superb jewelled elephant feet and the tour-de- Forbidden City: Imperial Furniture of Ming & Qing Dynasties, Beijing,
force of the recumbent elephant on top of the vessel, carrying a vase 2008, no.363.
laden with a cornucopia of auspicious representations.
Compare with a similar cloisonné enamel tripod incense burner,
Elephants figure prominently in the present lot and lend the incense Qianlong, illustrated in The Prime Cultural Relics Collected by
burner with much auspicious symbolism. The elephant is one of the Shenyang Imperial Palace Musem: The Enamel Volume, Shenyang,
‘Seven Royal Treasures’ associated with sage kings and the Buddha 2007, pp.100-101, no.IV-9; see also a related cloisonné enamel
himself. Moreover, the combination of an elephant xiang (象) and a square incense burner and cover, Qianlong, in the Lady Lever Art
vase ping (瓶), as can be seen on the finial of the present lot, forms a Gallery, Liverpool, illustrated by B.Quette, ed., Cloisonné: Chinese
rebus for ‘peaceful times’, taiping youxiang (太平有象). See also the Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, New York, 2011,
powerful symbolism demonstrated in a detail from the Imperial Court p.190, fig.10.5.
painting ‘Ten Thousand Envoys Come to Pay Tribute’, 1761, showing
a tribute of an elephant carrying a vase, illustrated by C.Ho and See a similar cloisonné enamel ‘elephant’ tripod incense burner,
B.Bronson, Splendors of China’s Forbidden City: The Glorious Reign of Qianlong, which was sold at Sotheby’s Hong Kong,
the Emperor Qianlong, London, 2004, pl.82. 9 October 2007, lot 1308.

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