A rare large documentary blue and white censer - Dated by inscription to 1732 and of the period

The robustly potted body rising from a short foot ring, modelled with globular rounded sides and flared, brown-dressed rim, painted with two dragons chasing flaming pearls, one side inscribed with a shou character medallion, the other with a dated inscription corresponding to 1732. 34.3cm (13¼in) diam. - Estimate: £8,000 - 10,000

Provenance: Sotheby's Hong Kong, 28 November 1979, lot 184.

Notes: The inscription reads: 'The discipline Lu Mu devoutly had this dragon censer made to be respectfully offered in perpetuity...at the altar of the most celestial, most martial, Lord of the Northern Dark Sky, on an auspicious day of the mid-autumn month in the tenth year of Yongzheng, renzi.'

It is extremely rare to find a censer of this form with a dated Yongzheng dedication, and no directly comparable example appears to be published. However, a smaller censer bearing a Chongzhen mark in the Butler Family Collection, similarly decorated with a pair of five clawed dragons and a dedicatory inscription dated to 1639, is illustrated in Shanghai Museum (ed.), Seventeenth Century Jingdezhen Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum and the Butler Collection: Beauty's Enchantment, Shanghai, 2005, pp.78-79, cat. 7. Another Shunzhi period example in the Beijing Palace Museum, cyclically dated to 1659 is illustrated by Chen Runmin, Qing Dynasty Blue and White Porcelain, Beijing, 2005, pp.52-53.

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Bonhams. Asian Art including Fine Bronzes, 26 Feb 2008. New Bond Street