A RARE SILVER SPHERICAL CENSER
A RARE SILVER SPHERICAL CENSER
A RARE SILVER SPHERICAL CENSER
A RARE SILVER SPHERICAL CENSER
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A RARE SILVER SPHERICAL CENSER

TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

Details
A RARE SILVER SPHERICAL CENSER
TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)
The globular censer is comprised of two, hinged openwork hemispheres suspended on a hooked chain. The upper hemisphere has a design of leafy, scrolling vines bearing two fruits flanked by pairs of birds, which alternate with two flowers above palmette-like leaves, while the lower hemisphere has a similar design, but no birds. The interior is fitted with a gimbaled system of rings holding a gilt-bronze cup upright irrespective of the movement of the outer sphere.
1 5/8 in. (4.3 cm.) diam.; weight 37.5 g
Provenance
Dr. Johan Carl Kempe (1884-1967) Collection, Sweden, before 1953, no. CK96.
Sotheby's London, Masterpieces of Chinese Precious Metalwork. Early Gold and Silver, 14 May 2008, lot 57.
Literature
Bo Gyllensvärd, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, Stockholm, 1953, cat. no. 96.
Bo Gyllensvärd, 'T'ang Gold and Silver', Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 29, Stockholm, 1957, pl. 5d, fig. 11b.
Han Wei, Hai nei wai Tangdai jin yin qi cuibian [Tang Gold and Silver in Chinese and overseas collections], Xi'an, 1989, pl. 293.
Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection. The Museum of Art and Far Eastern Antiquities in Ulricehamn, Ulricehamn, 1999, pl. 98.
Qi Dongfang, Tangdai jin yin qi yan jiu [Research on Tang gold and silver], Beijing, 1999, pl. 92.
Exhibited
Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution, Chinese Gold and Silver in the Carl Kempe Collection, 1954-55, cat. no. 96.
New York, Asia House Gallery, Chinese Gold, Silver and Porcelain. The Kempe Collection, 1971, cat. no. 44, an exhibition touring the United States and shown also at nine other museums.

Lot Essay

Censer/perfumers of this type, formed as an openwork sphere pendent from a chain, were used for both secular and religious purposes during the Tang dynasty. They held a variety of aromatic substances, some to be burned as incense, others to more slowly release their scent. The interior of these censers has a gimbaled arrangement of two silver bands holding a gilt-bronze, hemispherical incense receptacle in the center in which the aromatics were placed. This mechanism insured that the receptacle would at all times remain upright. These censers were used to freshen interiors and clothes and perhaps to repel insects. For a discussion of the use of aromatics, incense and perfume in the Tang period, see E. H. Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand, University of California, 1963. 

A similar censer unearthed in 1970, Hejiacun, Xi'an, Shaanxi province, is illustrated in Tangdai jin yin qi, 1985, figs. 95 and 96, where the design and construction are fully described, and again in Selected Treasures from Hejiacun Tang Hoard, Shaanxi History Museum, Wenwu, 2003, pp. 222-25. Another similar censer, formerly in the Hakutsuru Museum, Kobe, Japan, is illustrated in Tang, Eskenazi, London, 1987, no. 1. See, also, the similar example illustrated in Chinesisches Gold und Silber: Die Sammlung Pierre Uldry, Zurich, 1994, no. 201, and the example from the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, illustrated by Jan Fontein and Tung Wu, Unearthing China's Past, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1973, p. 178, no. 91, where the authors note that "according to the Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital the 'Cardan' method of suspension was already in use during the Western Han period."

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