Page 227 - China's Renaissance in Bronze, The Robert H.CIague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes 1100-1900

HIS RARE AND UNUSUAL CENSER was cast in the form of a qilin
seated on its haunches, its gaping, fang-lined mouth opened toward
T the sky. The hollow, plump beast has four legs that terminate in cloven
hooves. The qilin paws the air with his proper right front hoof, extending
its left front leg diagonally as a brace. Scales line the chest and abdomen
and a mane encircles the short neck; a bushy tail flows behind. Under
braided eyebrows, the beast's bulging eyes stare fiercely upward; a single,
faceted horn grows from the crown of the head, its tip curving forward.
Naturalistically rendered as fur, tongues of flame issue from the joints, sig-
naling the qilin's supernatural status. The flat base is unornamented. 1
Sometimes termed a unicorn in English, the qilin is one of the siting
mentioned in the Zhou-dynasty Liji (Book of Rites) along with the dragon,
phoenix, and tortoise. 2 A creature of good omen, the qilin symbolizes
longevity, grandeur, felicity, illustrious offspring, and wise administration.
Descriptions vary widely, but the qilin is usually said to resemble a large
stag. Other descriptions state that the qilin has two horns, that it has the
body of a horse, and that it is covered with scales like a fish 3 [46]. The qilin's
voice is melodious, like the sound of bells.
Xuande yiqi tupu reveals that bronze censers in the form of lions,
cranes, jiaoduan, and other auspicious animals were popular in the early
fifteenth century, the censers based on Tang and Yuan models. 4 In fact, lion
and q/7/n-shaped censers were popular throughout the Ming and Qing, in
5
bronze, porcelain, and jade. The Clague Collection qilin is both rare and
elegant in the context of such censers, since most feature an even more
rotund and stylized beast standing on four stubby legs; most such censers
were cast in two parts, the hinged or removeable head serving as a cover. 6
In such details as braided eyebrows and hatched scale edges, this qilin
resembles a censer dated by inscription to the second year of Tianqi (1622),
recently offered at auction by Sothebys Hong Kong, establishing an early
7
seventeenth-century date for the Clague censer. The piece is similar to a
small carved-bamboo sculpture in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
depicting a qilin that has been dated to the first half of the seventeenth
century on the basis of its similarity to images in the Ten Bamboo Studio
Album of Stationery (Shizhuzhai jian pu), first printed in 1644. 8
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This censer was integrally cast, except for its tail. Chatter marks indi-
cate that the beautifully striated mane and tail were cold worked, as were
the edges of the ears and scales. It has been suggested that bronzes with
thin, spotty traces of gilding of the type on this qilin may have had gold leaf
applied, which was then melted onto the surface. 10

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T H E R O B E R T II. C L A G U E C O L L E C T I O N