Lot 121. A parcel-gilt bronze 'Eight Buddhist Emblems' incense burner, gui, Incised Hu Wenming six-character mark, 17th century. Estimate £8,000 - 12,000. Sold for £15,000 (€17,733). Photo: Bonhams.

The vessel, rising from a high tapering foot with rounded sides curving inwards towards the rim, cast in low relief with the Eight Buddhist Emblems, bajixiang, between scrolling ruyi heads and animated mythical creatures, flanked by loop handles emanating from dragon heads, the base incised with six-character mark reading 'Made by Hu Wenming of Yunjian'. 16.5cm (6 1/2in) wide

Provenance: an Italian private collection 

Note: Hu Wenming is considered amongst the most accomplished artisans of the late Ming dynasty. The shape of the incense burner is based on an archaic prototype dating to the Shang or Zhou dynasties. The animated creatures, however, may have been drawn from the 'Classic of Mountains and Seas', Shan Hai Jing, compiled between the 2nd or 3rd century AD, which provided a vast array of motifs employed on later bronze and porcelain vessels.

A bronze incense burner signed by Hu Wenming and decorated with mythical creatures is illustrated in Power and Glory: Court Arts of China's Ming Dynasty, San Francisco, 2008, p.180 fig.111; another, similarly signed and cast with mythical creatures, is in the Phoenix Art Museum, illustrated by R.Mowry, China's Renaissance in Bronze: The Robert H. Clague Collection of Later Chinese Bronzes, Phoenix, 1993, p.69.