Page 31 - Bonhams May 11th 2017 London Fine Chinese Art

Hu Wenming is considered amongst the most accomplished artisans
of the late Ming dynasty. The shape of the incense burner is based
on an archaic prototype dating to the Shang or Zhou dynasties. The
animated creatures, however, may have been drawn from the ‘Classic
of Mountains and Seas’, Shan Hai Jing, compiled between the 2nd
or 3rd century AD, which provided a vast array of motifs employed on
later bronze and porcelain vessels.
A bronze incense burner signed by Hu Wenming and decorated with
mythical creatures is illustrated in Power and Glory: Court Arts of China’s
Ming Dynasty, San Francisco, 2008, p.180 fig.111; another, similarly
signed and cast with mythical creatures, is in the Phoenix Art Museum,
illustrated by R.Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze: The Robert H.
Clague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes, Phoenix, 1993, p.69.

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