Page 133 - Bonham's Asian Art London November 2015

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AN INLAID BRONZE ARCHAISTIC A PARCEL-GILT BRONZE TRIPOD
POURING VESSEL, HE ‘HUNDRED BOYS’ INLAID INCENSE
Late Qing Dynasty BURNER, DING
The globular body inlaid with an inscription Xuande six-character mark, 17th/18th century
from the Koran translating as ‘No one is The globular body cast and carved with a
more powerful or generous than God’, raised profusion of boys at various leisurely pursuits,
on tripod feet formed as standing primates, including reading books, playing with kites
flanked with a chicken head spout and a and admiring scrolls, the rim, handles and
straight handle, the lid with another inlaid tubular feet inlaid in white metal with archaistic
inscription. designs.
(2). 17cm (6 3/4in) high

£3,000 - 5,000 £1,000 - 1,500
CNY29,000 - 48,000 CNY9,700 - 15,000
HK$35,000 - 59,000 HK$12,000 - 18,000

Provenance
Collection of W.C. Blackett (1859-1935)
The present lot comes complete with a letter
dated 7 July 1911 sent to William Cuthbert
Blackett, a mine manager and engineer in
Durham who later served as a colonel in WWI
and was awarded a CBE in 1918. The letter,
from an unidentified academic, explains to
Blackett that the inscriptions on the vessel are
in Arabic and are likely quotations from the
Qur’an.
The distinctive form of the vessel takes it
inspiration from Han Dynasty wine vessels,
compare with a chicken-headed vessel,
206BC-AD220, in the San Francisco Museum
of Asian Art, no. B60B1069.

Other bronzes, attributed to the Ming era and 314
bearing Arabic words or text from the Qur’an,
are to be found in Rose Kerr’s ‘Later Chinese
Bronzes’ [illustrated page 54].

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