A blanc-de-Chine archaistic 'mask' incense burner, 17th century

31 décembre 2024

A blanc-de-Chine archaistic 'mask' incense burner, 17th century

Lot 9350. The Leshantang Collection. A blanc-de-Chine archaistic 'mask' incense burner, 17th century; w. 20.7 cm. Lot Sold 360,000 HKD (Estimate 100,000 - 150,000 HKD). © Sotheby's 2024

well potted after the archaistic Zhou dynasty bronze gui form, the compressed circular body with ribbed sides resting on three short feet modelled as paws and applied with bovine masks, the sides flanked by a pair of loop handles issuing from animal masks, the base encircled by moulded pendant lappets and the rim with zoomorphic motifs, covered overall with an even ivory-tinged glaze.

Provenance: Collection of Edward T. Chow.
Sotheby's Hong Kong, 19th May 1981, lot 467.
Offered at Sotheby's Hong Kong, 11th April 2008, lot 2504.

Literature: The Leshantang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Taipei, 2005, pl. 17.
Zhongguo mingtao Riben xunhui zhan. Gangtai mingjia shoucang taoci jingpin [Exhibition of famous Chinese ceramics touring Japan. Fine ceramics from private Hong Kong and Taiwanese Collections], Museum of History, Taipei, 1992, p. 154.

Exhibited: Chūgoku meitō ten: Chūgoku tōji 2000-nen no seika [Exhibition of important Chinese ceramics: Essence of two thousand years of Chinese ceramics], Nihonbashi Takashimaya, Tokyo, and six other locations in Japan, 1992, cat. no. 103.

Note : Fine Dehua wares are appreciated for their beauty, pure white pearl-like glaze and for the particularly smooth texture of the glaze. It was a ware highly favoured by the literati class who felt that the white glaze reflected and emulated their pure taste. Dehua kilns produced objects for the scholar's desk and the house altars.

Censers in the form of archaic bronzes after late Western Zhou dynasty tripod gui catered to the scholar's antiquarian tastes. Robert H. Blumenfield in Blanc de Chine. The Great Porcelain of Dehua, Berkeley, 2002, p. 21, notes that 'Dehua-made incense burners were used in temples, by families at household altars, or by scholars who sometimes used them to hold scholars' rocks or pebbles (for contemplating nature) or who savoured the smell of incense while they worked.'

A closely related censer from the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Collection. Monochrome Porcelain, Hong Kong, 1999, pl. 109; and another similar example, from the Carl Kempe collection in the Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities, Ulricehamn, Sweden, is published in Chinese Ceramic Treasures. A Selection from the Ulricehamn East Asian Museum, Including the Carl Kempe Collection, Ulricehamn, 2002, cat. no. 810.

Compare a related gui decorated with a band of stylised flowers and raised on a high foot sold in our London rooms, 12th December 1989, lot 387; and another sold in these rooms, 17th May 1988, lot 41. For examples of archaic bronze-inspired Dehua censers of other forms see a ding illustrated in P. J. Donnelly, Blanc de Chine, London, 1969, pl. 13D; and a fangding included in Robert H. Blumenfield, op. cit., p. 23, fig. D.

For the inspiration of this piece see a Western Zhou dynasty archaic bronze gui illustrated by Jessica Rawson, Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. II B, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, Washington DC, 1990, no. 56.

Sotheby's. Polychrome, Hong Kong, 4 December 2024