Lot Essay
Our present cloisonné enamel censer and cover seems to be the largest we can find in this kind. The shape of this censer is clearly based upon ancient bronze vessels. The blade-shaped legs, loop handles, flanges along with the motifs of kui dragons and wide spreading taotie masks, all have their prototypes in Shang bronzes. Compare the current censer with a closely related but smaller
fangding (40.6 cm high), dated 17th/18th century, from the Clague Collection, illustrated in C. Brown, Chinese Cloisonné - The Clague Collection, Phoenix Art Museum 1980, pp.84-85, pl.34. Also see a smililar censer measuring 39.5 cm high, illustrated in Dr. Gunhild Gabbert Avitabile, Die Ware aus dem Teufelsland, Chinesische und japanische Cloisonné – und Champlevé-Arbeiten von 1400 bis 1900, Germany, 1981, cat. no. 17. Finally see the important cloisonné enamel fangding (49.5 cm high), dated Kangxi period, from the collection of Juan Jose Amezaga, sold in Christie's Paris, 7 December 2007, lot 32.
fangding (40.6 cm high), dated 17th/18th century, from the Clague Collection, illustrated in C. Brown, Chinese Cloisonné - The Clague Collection, Phoenix Art Museum 1980, pp.84-85, pl.34. Also see a smililar censer measuring 39.5 cm high, illustrated in Dr. Gunhild Gabbert Avitabile, Die Ware aus dem Teufelsland, Chinesische und japanische Cloisonné – und Champlevé-Arbeiten von 1400 bis 1900, Germany, 1981, cat. no. 17. Finally see the important cloisonné enamel fangding (49.5 cm high), dated Kangxi period, from the collection of Juan Jose Amezaga, sold in Christie's Paris, 7 December 2007, lot 32.