Page 76 - Christie's Asian Art Auctions PARIS December 2019

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RARE IMPORTANT BRULE-PARFUM TRIPODE COUVERT This imposing tripod censer with its archaistic bronze-style
EN EMAUX CLOISONNES, DING decoration and enamel coloured to suggest the patina of ancient
CHINE, DYNASTIE QING, MARQUE A SIX CARACTERES bronze represents a major artistic theme of the Qianlong reign.
INCISEE ET EPOQUE QIANLONG (1736-1795)
Censers of this type might have been used for ritual purposes in the
La panse circulaire reposant sur trois pieds massifs légèrement Qing court and would have normally been one of the fve pieces of an
cabriolets surgissant de trois gueules menaçantes d'animaux altar set, which also includes two candlesticks and two fower vases.
fabuleux en bronze doré. La panse et le couvercle ornés de masques
de taotie et autres motifs géométriques archaïsants sur un fond vert The Qianlong Emperor was a devotee of Tibetan Buddhism and had
foncé avec des tâches bleu et rouge imitant la patine et les oxydations commissioned the construction of numerous Buddhist temples and
des bronzes archaïques. La prise du couvercle en bronze doré est shrines in Beijing and in other areas, each requiring an extensive
ajourée et fnement sculptée d'un dragon à la poursuite de la perle array of ritual objects like the current censer. Furthermore, cloisonné
enfammée dans des nuages stylisés, la base de la prise soulignée enamel censers were used for display in the Qing court. The Qianqing
d'une frise de pétales fnement ciselés. gong, Hall of Heavenly Purity, for example, has a set of cloisonné
Hauteur: 68 cm. (26æ in.), diamètre: 47,5 cm. (18Ω in.) enamel censers decorated with lotus blooms displayed in front of the
Emperor’s throne.
€50,000-70,000 US$56,000-78,000
£44,000-61,000 The current censer is very similar in design and form to a number
of pieces from the Qing Court Collection. See for example censers
PROVENANCE: decorated with lotus scrolls, including: a censer of smaller size, lion
Previously in a European private collection.
masks, and a Qianlong mark but without a lid in the Palace Museum
Collection, Beijing, illustrated by P. Berger, China: The Three Emperors
A RARE AND IMPORTANT CLOISONNE ENAMEL ARCHAISTIC
TRIPOD CENSER AND COVER, DING 1662-1795, London, 2006. p. 139, no. 44; another similar piece also in
CHINA, QING DYNASTY, QIANLONG INCISED SIX-CHARACTER the Palace Museum Collection, Beijing, illustrated in Metal-bodied
MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795) Enamel Ware, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace
Museum, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 144, no. 138; and a censer illustrated
清乾隆 掐絲琺琅仿青銅獸面紋三足蓋爐 六字楷書刻款 in Sir H. Garner, Chinese and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, London,
來源：歐洲私人珍藏
1970, p. 92, pl. 70.
See a cloisonne enamel archaistic you vessel with the same dark
green colour imitating the archaic bronzes, bearing similar taotie
decoration, in the Qing court collection, illustrated in Metal-bodied
Enamel Ware, The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace
Museum, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 155, pl. 147. See another Hu-shaped
vessel with blue and green stains imitating traces of oxydation on
archaic bronzes, also in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
(inventory number Gu00117113). It is interesting to notice that there
are also a limited number of archaistic painted enamel vessels
bearing the same colour scheme, see a painted enamel bronze tripod
Yan-shaped censer, in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing
(inventory number Gu00117067).

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