Page 154 - Chinese Art, Hong Kong Sotheby's .pdf

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A RARE CLOISONNE ENAMEL TRIPOD 明宣德 掐絲琺瑯纏枝番蓮紋三足爐
INCENSE BURNER
MING DYNASTY, XUANDE PERIOD
the compressed globular body raised on three tapered legs
issuing from mythical beast masks, applied with a pair of
upright handles, the body richly enamelled with a continuous
register of meandering lotus against a turquoise-blue ground,
with a classic scroll against a red ground at the rim, the
handles decorated in champlevé enamels with geometric
scrolls in red, blue and green, the rims and details gilt
14.8 cm, 5⅞ in.
HK$ 300,000-500,000
US$ 38,400-64,000

A relatively small number of similar incense burners is known,
compare two of the same form and decoration, one from the
Avery Brundage Collection, now in the Asian Art Museum of
San Francisco, included in the exhibition Cloisonné. Chinese
Enamels from the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Bard
Graduate Center, New York, 2011, cat. no. 23; and another,
with its cover, illustrated in Chinese Cloisonné. The Pierre Uldry
Collection, The Asia Society Galleries, New York, 1989, cat. no.
15. See also a closely related censer without applied animal-
masks surmounting the legs, sold in our New York rooms, 21st
March 2018, lot 587.

Further related censers of this type include two examples with
raised bosses below the rim, sold at Christie’s New York, 26th
March 2003, lot 60, and Christie’s London, 15th December
1983, lot 353. A further example, formerly in the Palmer
Museum of Art, was sold in our New York rooms, 23rd March
2004, lot 525.

152 SOTHEBY’S 蘇富比