Page 48 - Important Chinese Art, Sotheby's London May 15 2019

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PROPERTY FROM THE RUI XIU LOU COLLECTION This elegant and quite large tripod censer emulates the
A ‘LONGQUAN’ CELADON TRIPOD CENSER AND form of an archaic bronze. Censers of this form enjoyed
COVER great popularity in the Song dynasty and illustrate the
major influence on the arts of the rise of Neo-Confucianism.
SOUTHERN SONG DYNASTY In a drastic political shift during the early Song dynasty
of compressed globular form with a straight neck and a a centralised bureaucracy governed by scholar-officials
broad everted rim, supported on three splayed legs each selected through civil service examinations began to emerge
moulded with a vertical flange, covered overall with a rich, resulting in an increased interest in the study of history as
lustrous sea-green glaze, the later Japanese silver domed a guiding principle in the pursuit of virtue and rulership.
cover pierced with a pair of phoenix amongst foliage This led to a revival of antiquarianism, the study of archaic
(2) bronzes and jades, their forms and designs, which Song
14 cm, 5½ in. potters skillfully adapted and incorporated into their artistic
repertoire. The particular form of this superb tripod censer
PROVENANCE from the Longquan kilns is directly adapted from an archaic
Collection of Ichiro Hayashibara. bronze food vessel known as liding, with a tri-lobed body
Sotheby’s London, 7th November 2012, lot 220. supported on three legs often emphasized with flanges.
See for example a bronze li attributed to the Western Zhou
‡ £ 60,000-80,000 dynasty (c. 1046-771 B.C.), excavated from Qijiacun, Fufeng,
HK$ 620,000-825,000 US$ 79,000-105,000 Shaanxi province, and illustrated in Jessica Rawson, Western
Zhou Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections,
南宋 龍泉窰青瓷鬲式爐 連 銀蓋 Washington D.C., 1990, fig. 28.2. While the archaic vessels
of this type were decorated with complex cast designs and
來源 set with a pair of loop handles, the tripod censers made in
林原一郎收藏 the Longquan kilns are plain and without handles. It is the
倫敦蘇富比2012年11月7日，編號220 simplicity of its clearly defined form and the subtlety of the
brilliantly hued sea-green glaze that expresses the aesthetic
appeal of this particular Longquan censer whose barely
visible ridges around the shoulders and ribs along the legs
only emphasize its pure form while the glaze that thins to
white around these ridges and ribs emphasizes the exquisite
bluish-green tone of the lustrous glaze.
Censers of this form are held in important museums and
private collections worldwide; two censers in the Palace
Museum, Beijing, are illustrated in The Complete Collection
of Treasures of the Palace Museum. Porcelain of the
Song Dynasty (II), Hong Kong, 1996, pls 121 and 122; one
in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, was included in
the Museum’s Special Exhibition of Incense Burners and
Perfumers Throughout the Dynasties, Taipei, 1994, cat.
no. 13; another in the Tokyo National Museum is published
in Oriental Ceramics, The World’s Great Collections, vol.
1, Tokyo, 1982, pl. 97; and a further censer from the Sir
Percival David collection now in the British Museum, London,
is published in Margaret Medley, Illustrated Catalogue of
Celadon Wares in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese
Art, London, 1997, col. pl. 34. An even larger Longquan
censer of this shape is in the collection of the Harvard Art
Museums (1997.122), and a related censer of similar size was
sold in Christie’s New York, 17th and 18th September 2015,
lot 2344.

46 Buyers are liable to pay both the hammer price (as estimated above) and the buyer’s premium together with any applicable taxes and Artist’s Resale Right (which will depend on the individual circumstanc-
es). Refer to the Buying at Auction and VAT sections at the back of this catalogue for further information.