Lot Essay
Compare with a very similar Qianlong-marked censer and cover sold in these Rooms, 30 April 2000, lot 533, and a Ming prototype also sold in the same sale, lot 576, from which the Indian lotus motif on cloisonne enamel originates.
The unusual feet in the form of a gilt-bronze elephant-head also originated in the Ming period. A smaller Jingtai-marked censer with a more restrained design is the National Palace Museum, Taibei, and illustrated in Enamel Ware in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasty, 1999, no. 18; another larger example with the heads, except for the tusks and ears, entirely embellished in cloisonne enamel, is illustrated op. cit., no. 15. A very large censer also supported on large cloisonne elephant heads is shown in a photograph of the group of cloisonne furnishings in the Palace of Fontainbleau, which were believed to have been taken from the Yuanmingyuan, illustrated by Brinker and Lutz, Chinese Cloisonne, The Pierre Uldry Collection, 1989, fig. 6.
(US$32,000-45,000)
The unusual feet in the form of a gilt-bronze elephant-head also originated in the Ming period. A smaller Jingtai-marked censer with a more restrained design is the National Palace Museum, Taibei, and illustrated in Enamel Ware in the Ming and Ch'ing Dynasty, 1999, no. 18; another larger example with the heads, except for the tusks and ears, entirely embellished in cloisonne enamel, is illustrated op. cit., no. 15. A very large censer also supported on large cloisonne elephant heads is shown in a photograph of the group of cloisonne furnishings in the Palace of Fontainbleau, which were believed to have been taken from the Yuanmingyuan, illustrated by Brinker and Lutz, Chinese Cloisonne, The Pierre Uldry Collection, 1989, fig. 6.
(US$32,000-45,000)