Page 44 - CHRISTIE'S Chinese Ceramics & Works of Art 09/14 - 15 / 17

925
A RARE AND UNUSUAL LARGE
BRONZE CENSER

17TH-18TH CENTURY
The censer has fared sides and is cast with pairs of
loop rings at the sides, each held within the hand of
a foreigner who forms the supports. Each foreigner
wears a pair of loose-ftting pants that fall short of his
bare feet and a long fowing sash wrapped around the
shoulders and tied across the bare chest. The face
is cast with a curly beard, an open mouth beneath a
mustache and large eyes beneath the coifed curled
hair. The base is cast with an apocryphal six-character
Xuande mark.
24º in. (62.2 cm.) across
$20,000-30,000

The two fgures supporting the censer are identifed
as foreigners by both their clothes and facial features.
During the 17th and 18th centuries in China there was
a fascination with all things foreign. This interest in
foreigners, their clothes, customs and belongings, is
refected in a number of the arts of the period. Scrolls
depicting tribute bearers from foreign lands were
commissioned by the court, on which male and female
fgures from various countries were shown in their
diferent costumes. On one such hand scroll in the
collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, the many
fgures are described as being from the West and
the attributes of each couple are discussed in both
Chinese and Manchu. See Splendors of a Flourishing
Age, Macau, 1999, no. 42. Compare, also, a related but
smaller (39.5 cm. long) bronze ingot-shaped censer
and cover, cast with four crouching foreigners forming
the legs and dating to the 17th-18th century sold at
Christie’s New York, 22-23 March 2012, lot 1553.
十七/十八世紀 銅胡人獻寶方爐

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