A REPOUSSÉ AND PARCEL-GILT COPPER TWO-HANDLED CENSER, GUI

Details

A REPOUSSÉ AND PARCEL-GILT COPPER TWO-HANDLED CENSER, GUI
YUNJIAN HU WENMING ZHI PUNCHED AND GILDED SEAL, 16TH/17TH CENTURY

Of bombé shape, decorated in repoussé on each side in a central band with a winged and fish-tailed qilin rising from waves, with a Buddhistic lion to each side below two small birds and cloud scrolls, all in relief, finely chased and gilded and silhouetted against a finely punched dark ground, set between two archaistic scroll bands at the neck and foot similarly silhouetted and divided by stylized animal mask-headed handles decorated with various 'auspicious' symbols
5 3/8in. (13.7cm.) across

Lot Essay

Hu Wenming of Yunjian (modern Songjiang, near Shanghai) is perhaps the most famous name associated with incense wares of this type made for the scholar's table

A similar example was included in the exhibition, China's Renaissance in Bronze, Phoenix Art Museum, September 25, 1993-January 30, 1994, and illustrated by Robert Mowry in the Catalogue, p. 67, no. 12; and another with the same mark and identical decoration on the body and handles is illustrated by Wan-go Weng and Yang Boda, The Palace Museum: Peking, Treasures of The Forbidden City, New York, 1982, p. 274, pl. 175, and dated to the reign of the Xuande Emperor (1426-35)

Two further examples with different decoration encircling the foot are illustrated by Paul Moss, The Literati Mode, London, 1986, Catalogue, p. 291, no. 145 and p. 293, no. 147, the latter by Hu Kuang-Yu, the son of Hu Wenming