AN UNUSUAL LARGE BRONZE CENSER

17TH-18TH CENTURY

Details

AN UNUSUAL LARGE BRONZE CENSER
17TH-18TH CENTURY
The censer has flared sides and is cast with pairs of loop rings at the sides, each held within the hand of a foreigner who forms the supports. Each foreigner wears a pair of loose-fitting pants that fall short of his bare feet and a long flowing sash wrapped around the shoulders and tied across the bare chest. The face is cast with a curly beard, an open mouth beneath a mustache and large eyes beneath the coiffed curled hair. The base is cast with an apocryphal six-character Xuande mark.
24 ¼ in. (62.2 cm.) across

Lot Essay

The two figures supporting the censer are identified as foreigners by both their clothes and facial features. During the 17th and 18th centuries in China there was a fascination with all things foreign. This interest in foreigners, their clothes, customs and belongings, is reflected in a number of the arts of the period. Scrolls depicting tribute bearers from foreign lands were commissioned by the court, on which male and female figures from various countries were shown in their different costumes. On one such hand scroll in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, the many figures are described as being from the West and the attributes of each couple are discussed in both Chinese and Manchu. See Splendors of a Flourishing Age, Macau, 1999, no. 42. Compare, also, a related but smaller (39.5 cm. long) bronze ingot-shaped censer and cover, cast with four crouching foreigners forming the legs and dating to the 17th-18th century sold at Christie's New York, 22-23 March 2012, lot 1553.

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