Page 100 - Bonhams September 10 2018 New York Chinese Works of Art

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A CLOISONNE ENAMEL AND GILT-BRONZE ARCHAISTIC
‘TAOTIE’ CENSER AND COVER
19th century
The body of gently tapered rectangular form, each side decorated According to Ross Kerr in Beatrice Quette, ed., Cloisonné: Chinese
with a taotie mask beneath a band of four kuifeng, divided at the Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, New York, 2011,
center and edges with notched vertical flanges, the broad flat rim p.90, the form of cloisonné vessels especially those with imperial
set with a pair of upright loop handles decorated with taotie masks Qing provenance, followed the conventions established for archaistic
above archaistic dragon scrolls, the dragon scroll design repeated bronzes, however the artisans adapted the decorative motifs very
on the underside surrounding a gilded cross bar and on the domed freely, ‘often rendering archaic designs in an abstract manner and
cover surrounding reticulated gilded panels of bats and clouds, incorporating non-archaic motifs on the same object’. This can be
surmounted by a seated lion finial, all supported on four dragon-fish seen in the present lot where bats, clouds, lions and dragon-fish are
form legs, decorated with incised scrolling lotus and T-scroll bands. combined with archaistic elements like taotie, kuifeng, leiwan and
22 1/2in (57.2cm) high scrolling kuilong.

$40,000 - 60,000 Censers of this form were popular throughout the Qing period. A
Kangxi period example is illustrated in Beatrice Quette, ed., op. cit.,
十九世紀 掐絲琺瑯饕餮紋方蓋鼎 p. 92, fig. 5.21. and a number of examples dated to the Qianlong
period have been sold at auction, for example Christie’s, Hong Kong,
Provenance 29 May 2013, lot 2058; 29 May 2013, lot 2058; June 2016, lot 3232,
Chen Ji Wenwanchu, 1942 (by repute) and as previously mentioned lot 3229. All these examples have the
Acquired in France in the 1990s. same general form, but slightly different surface decoration.

Possessing articles relating to China’s ancient history was one The enamels on the present lot are finer with less pitting when
method that rulers of China used to claim legitimacy, and as compared to the Qianlong period examples and may have been
Manchus, the Qing emperors were particularly aware of this. Not only made after the Qianlong period.
did they collect ancient Chinese art, but they also commissioned new
objects based on ancient designs.

The present lot, whose form is based on an ancient bronze vessel
called a fangding that was current during the late Shang dynasty,
is one such example. The decoration on this lot is almost identical
to one in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated
in Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum, Enamels 3,
Cloisonne in the Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 2011, pl. 226.; and also to
one dated Qianlong, sold at Christie’s, Hong Kong, 1 June 2016,
lot 3229.