Page 36 - 2020 December 1 Bonhams Hong Kong, Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of art

Yonghe Palace, Beijing Minneapolis Institute of Art
北京雍和宮 明尼阿波利斯美術館

Physically and visually imposing, the present large incense burner The incense burner was a centrepiece for a five-piece altar set,
represents the apogee and ultimate achievement of Imperial-bronze flanked by a pair of candlesticks and two vases. They would have
craftsman during the reign of the Yongzheng emperor. The archaistic served practical functions in Imperial temple rituals while appearing
form and design exemplify the emperor’s personal admiration of highly ornamental at the same time. See an identical Yongzheng
and inspiration from antiquity. The combination of the crisply cast incense burner with additional Jing Zhi mark, as part of the five-piece
archaistic motifs, such as the taotie masks, the cicada blades and the garniture, which was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 26 April 1999,
kui-dragons, with the contemporary designs of the strap-handles and now in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, illustrated by P.K.Hu, Later
imposing mask-form feet, resulted in an arresting statement of the Chinese Bronzes: The Saint Louis Art Museum and Robert E. Kresko
power and grandeur of the Yongzheng era. Collections, Saint Louis, 2008, p.157, fig.9. Another full five-piece
garniture, Yongzheng mark and period is in the Yonghe Palace, Beijing,
According to Da-Qing Huidian, the largest jurisdictional corpus on known as the Lama Temple. For other Yongzheng and Jing Zhi marked
administrative matters complied during the Qing dynasty, Imperial bronze altar wares, see a pair of Imperial baluster temple vases in the
Workshops had been set up by the Kangxi emperor with two divisions Saint Louis Art Museum, illustrated by P.K.Hu, ibid., no.32; and see
to produce bronze objects, as exemplified by six Kangxi mark and another illustrated by Sydney L. Moss Ltd., The Second Bronze Age:
period bronze objects in the Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Later Chinese Metalwork, London, 1991, no.68.
Beijing. In the fifth year of the Yongzheng reign (1727), a new division
recorded as Zhuluzuo, (incense burner cast workshop) was set up in See also a bronze five-piece garniture, Yongzheng period, in the
the Palace Workshops, to produce large-size bronze offering objects Buddhist shrine, the Hall of Inherence, Xianruoguan, in the Garden
such as the present strap-handled incense burner. For a detailed of the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility, Cininggong huayuan,
discussion by Zhang Li about the production of Imperial bronzes at illustrated in Daily Life in the Forbidden City, New York, 1988, pl.467.
the Palace Workshops, see ‘qinggong tongqi zhizao kao’ (Study of the
Qing dynasty Imperial Bronze Production: Yongzheng and Qianlong),
published in Palace Museum Journal, vol.5, 2013, Beijing, pp.94-133.

In the Huojidang, the Archives of the Imperial Workshops, bronze
incense burners of archaistic style with strap-handles recorded as
chaoguanlu, appear to have only been made during the eleventh year
of the Yongzheng reign (1733).These include ‘two archaistic strap-
handled incense burners’ ordered on the second day of February;
‘eight gilt-bronze strap-handled incense burners with eight incense
supporters’ ordered on the first day of March, to be presented to the
Imperial Ancestral Temple’. The Imperial Archives further record that a
wooden model would have to be presented to the Yongzheng emperor
for approval to make this type of bronze strap-handled incense burner.
See Qinggong Neiwufu Zaobanchu Dangan Zonghui, vol.5, Beijing
2012, pp.834 and 835. It is therefore very likely that the present
Yongzheng and Jing Zhi-marked incense burner was commissioned
around the same time for an Imperial temple.

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