Page 191 - 2019 September 10th Sotheby's Important Chinese Art Jades, Met Museum Irving Collection NYC

127 A BRONZE ‘HILL’ CENSER AND
COVER (BOSHANLU)
㻊ġġġ 戭 HAN DYNASTY
⌂ in the form of a bud with the hemispherical lower body attached used in daily life or in rituals related to cults of immortality. The
Ⱉ to the openwork conical cover by a hinge, the sides of the cover mountain form refers to the mythical peaks where immortals
䆸 rising in a series of pierced peaks to imitate the topography and lived, and the visual e/ ect would have been fully realized when
swirling mist of a ‘magic mountain’, surmounted by a ß oriform the smoke from the incense wafted through the pierced holes
Þ nial centered with a small bird, all supported on a waisted to imitate the natural movement of mist in the lofty landscape.
stem encircled by a rotating four-petal ß ower, each petal in the The present example belongs to a rare subtype of ‘Boshan lu’ in
shape of a ruyi head and cast with an intaglio scrolling motif, the which the waisted stem is encircled by a four-petal ß ower in full
spreading foot cast with a similar design, supported on a shallow bloom. Other censers with this design include one surmounted
circular basin with an everted rim, a Þ ne light green patina by a bird-form Þ nial that sold in these rooms, 2nd November
throughout with touches of blue azurite, wood stand (2) 1979, lot 241; another, in the collection of the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, exhibited and published in Jan Fontain and Wu
Tung, Unearthing China’s Past, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
Height 6⅞ in., 17.5 cm
1973, cat. no. 44; a variation which has these traits, with a three-
dimensional mythical beast encircling the base of the stem,
published in ibid., Þ g. 47; and a gilt-bronze example that also
PROVENANCE
has the mythical beast embellishment, but lacking the bird-form
Spink & Son, London, 1st August 1985.
Þ nial, in the collection of the Idemitsu Museum, Tokyo, and
Collection of Florence (1920-2018) and Herbert (1917-2016)
published in Chū goku kodai no bijutsu/Ancient Chinese Arts in
Irving, no. 964.
the Idemitsu Collection, Tokyo, 1978, cat. no. 203.
‘Boshan’ censers developed in the Western Han dynasty as a
visually splendid class of incense burners that would have been $ 10,000-15,000
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END OF SALE

CHINESE ART FROM THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: THE FLORENCE AND HERBERT IRVING GIFT 189