Incense burners of this form were intended as part of a throne room. Cf. a pair of turquoise-inlaid gilt-bronze incense burners of this shape in the Shenyang Museum, one is illustrated by R. Thorp, Son of Heaven, Imperial Arts of China, no. 37, 38; another pair in the Forbidden City, with gilt dragons possibly on a cloisonne ground was displayed in the throne room inside the Palace of Heavenly Purity, illustrated Wan-go by Weng and Yang Boda, The Palace Museum: Peking, p. 51 and again in Holdsworth and Courtauld, The Forbidden City, The Great Within, p. 86; another pair in the Palace of Harboring Grace is illustrated on p. 69. A pair was included in the Musee du Petit Palais exhibition, La Cite Interdite, Paris, 1996-1997, Catalogue, p. 164.

(US$200,000-230,000)