QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

Jade vases of this type were made as part of jade incense garnitures, that also included an incense burner and cover and an incense box and cover that held incense either in strip, coil or pellet form. The vases held the implements for manipulating the incense, including a pair of chopsticks and a small spatula to rake or smooth the bed of ashes in the censer. Such a garniture in dark green jade, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, dated to the Qianlong period, which includes a vase very similar to the present vase, is illustrated in Zhongguo meishu quanji, gongyi meishu, yuqi, vol. 9, Beijing, 1986, p. 189, no. 320. A very similar vase was also part of a green jade incense garniture sold at Christie's New York, 23 March 1995, lot 221, which was similar to the garniture in the Palace Museum.