Page 116 - Christies Asia Week 2015 Chinese Works of Art

PROPERTY FROM A MARYLAND FAMILY COLLECTION
2077
A RARE CLOISONNÉ AND CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL TRIPOD INCENSE BURNER
MING DYNASTY, 15TH CENTURY

The censer has a compressed body raised on three tall legs terminating in up-turned, gilt-
bronze foliate motifs, and is decorated around the sides with lotus scroll below a red, key-fret
band applied with gilt-metal, whorled feather bosses. The body is fanked by a pair of curved,
upright handles decorated in red and blue champlevé enamel, and a Jingtai six-character mark is
inscribed on the base.
7 in. (17.8 cm.) high

$100,000-150,000

PROVENANCE:

Acquired from Oriental Art, Inc., New York, 1 December 1947, and thence by descent
within the family.

This censer is similar to others that have been dated to the Xuande period, or frst half of the ffteenth
century. Two of these, formerly in the Kitson Collection, are illustrated by Sir Harry Garner, Chinese
and Japanese Cloisonné Enamels, London, 1962, pls. 17 A and 19 A. The frst has a similar key-fret
band below the rim, but without the bosses, while the band on the second censer has bosses, but
positioned between clouds, and both have covers and gilt-metal foliate motifs on the legs, which are
shorter and end in a simple gilt-bronze band at the bottom. Another in the Avery Brundage Collection,
Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, illustrated by B. Quette (ed.), Cloisonné Chinese Enamels from
the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, Bard Graduate Center, p. 235, no. 23, does not have the applied
bosses on the red key-fret band. Two other ffteenth century examples, both with covers, in the Uldry
Collection, are illustrated by H. Brinker and A. Lutz in Chinese Cloisonné: The Pierre Uldry Collection,
The Asia Society Galleries, New York, 1989, nos. 13 and 15. See, also, the example, without bosses
or gilt-mounts on the feet sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 2 November 1999, lot 799. Cloisonné enamel
vessels of fourteenth- to sixteenth-century date were highly prized at the Qing court during the
eighteenth century, and master craftsmen working for the Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong
sometimes embellished them with newly prepared metal fttings. This practice of enhancement can be
seen on the present censer, on which the gilt-metal bosses, feet and liner are Qing additions.

明十五世紀 掐絲及鏨胎琺瑯蕃蓮紋鼎式爐

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