.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Previously sold in New York, 23 October 1976, lot 97.
The censer that forms part of this garniture was also sold by the British Rail Pension Fund as lot 92; the pair of vases that complete the set sold in Hong Kong, 28 and 29 November 1978, lot 432, and are illustrated in Sotheby's Hong Kong, Twenty Years, 1993, no. 426, and again by Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command, pl. 20, where he attributes them to the Beijing Palace Workshops. Moss explains that enamelled metal dating to the Yongzheng period are scarce, save for several snuff bottles, ibid., p. 47. Several innovations during the Yongzheng reign include "the use of wrought and gilded metal detail (such as handles, covers and finials) and the sectional manufacture of items to overcome the limitation of size imposed by the small kilns which, we may assume, convenience dictated for the palace precincts".
The censer that forms part of this garniture was also sold by the British Rail Pension Fund as lot 92; the pair of vases that complete the set sold in Hong Kong, 28 and 29 November 1978, lot 432, and are illustrated in Sotheby's Hong Kong, Twenty Years, 1993, no. 426, and again by Hugh Moss, By Imperial Command, pl. 20, where he attributes them to the Beijing Palace Workshops. Moss explains that enamelled metal dating to the Yongzheng period are scarce, save for several snuff bottles, ibid., p. 47. Several innovations during the Yongzheng reign include "the use of wrought and gilded metal detail (such as handles, covers and finials) and the sectional manufacture of items to overcome the limitation of size imposed by the small kilns which, we may assume, convenience dictated for the palace precincts".