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Lot Essay
A complete incense garniture is highly unusual and is even rarer to find a set carved in jade. The set is known as ‘Three Accessories’ (sanshi), which includes a censer (lu), a box (he) and a vase (ping), together form the homophones with words for wealth, longevity and peace. Incense burning had been a Chinese tradition since as early as the Han dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.), and has been well demonstrated by the numerous pottery and bronze censers with their lids modelled as mountains, known as hill jars. These censers have apertures for smoke to escape and as such they probably had a spiritual meaning as smoke dispersed heaven-wards through the aperture in the mountain peaks. The circular box is for the storage of incense either in strip, coil or pellet form, and the tool vase is used to accommodate implements such as chopsticks and spatula to rake or smooth the bed of ashes placed in the censer.
The ritual of incense burning served not only a spiritual element but it facilitated other more practical purposes such as the fumigation of clothes. From the Song dynasty onwards, censers became increasingly popular paraphernalia for the scholar's studio as the burning of incense was thought to enhance the clarity of mind. It was a tradition to burn incense nearby when scholars played the qin, a seven string musical instrument.
Over time the incense appreciation has been blended into daily life and become an art; they hold not only practical and ornamental function, but also serve as gifts in the literati circle and symbols for intellects. A similar spinach green jade set yet of square-form, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, collection no. Gu00101279-1 (Fig. 1). Another similar set in white jade and made specifically as a wedding gift, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3000 Years of Jades, lot 658 (Fig. 2).
The ritual of incense burning served not only a spiritual element but it facilitated other more practical purposes such as the fumigation of clothes. From the Song dynasty onwards, censers became increasingly popular paraphernalia for the scholar's studio as the burning of incense was thought to enhance the clarity of mind. It was a tradition to burn incense nearby when scholars played the qin, a seven string musical instrument.
Over time the incense appreciation has been blended into daily life and become an art; they hold not only practical and ornamental function, but also serve as gifts in the literati circle and symbols for intellects. A similar spinach green jade set yet of square-form, is in the collection of the Palace Museum, Beijing, collection no. Gu00101279-1 (Fig. 1). Another similar set in white jade and made specifically as a wedding gift, was sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 3000 Years of Jades, lot 658 (Fig. 2).