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拍品專文
Braziers of this large type were not only decorative but were made to be used, as they were the most convenient form of heating in the Imperial palaces. Made to hold coal these braziers ranged from large vessels standing on three elephant heads, like the current example, to simple cages the size of a water melon.
The tradition of using three elephant heads as the feet of imperial censers and braziers dates to the Xuande reign. But it is during the later years of the Ming dynasty that one sees braziers or incense burners of larger size and also of the hexagonal shape of the present example. A smaller incense burner (11 in. high) of this type and shape, also with openwork panels and raised on elephant heads, dated to the second half 16th century, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated by Wen C. Fong and James C.Y. Watt, Possessing the Past, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, p. 454, pl. 256. Another similar cloisonné enamel brazier or incense burner of this large size and hexagonal shape, and with a similar finial is illustrated by E.B. Avril, Chinese Art in the Cincinnati Art Museum, 1997, pp. 182 and 190, no. 98.
The tradition of using three elephant heads as the feet of imperial censers and braziers dates to the Xuande reign. But it is during the later years of the Ming dynasty that one sees braziers or incense burners of larger size and also of the hexagonal shape of the present example. A smaller incense burner (11 in. high) of this type and shape, also with openwork panels and raised on elephant heads, dated to the second half 16th century, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated by Wen C. Fong and James C.Y. Watt, Possessing the Past, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, p. 454, pl. 256. Another similar cloisonné enamel brazier or incense burner of this large size and hexagonal shape, and with a similar finial is illustrated by E.B. Avril, Chinese Art in the Cincinnati Art Museum, 1997, pp. 182 and 190, no. 98.