AN IMPERIAL ARCHAISTIC JADEITE CENSER AND COVER, FANGDING

Details

AN IMPERIAL ARCHAISTIC JADEITE CENSER AND COVER, FANGDING
QING DYNASTY, LATE 19TH CENTURY

The tapering rectangular body carved in shallow relief on two sides with a taotie mask and on each of the narrow sides with angular scrolls flanking the scroll handle suspending a loose ring, surmounted by a dragon head grasping a trailing leafy branch in its jaw, raised on four angular legs carved at the top with a lion-mask and the base with a projecting scroll band, the cover similarly carved with further archaistic scroll as a background for a Buddhist lion and its two cubs playing with a beribboned ball, the semi-translucent stone of greenish white and pale green colour with some pale russet areas and splashes of brilliant apple and emerald green colour, the base carved with an apocryphal Qianlong four-character sealmark
11 1/8 in. (28 cm.) high, wood stand

Provenance

E.A. Punnett & Co., Beijing, 18 September 1938
The Doris Duke Collection, sold at Christie's New York, 21 September 2004, lot 116

Lot Essay

A closely related rectangular censer and cover, possibly the pair to the present example, is illustrated in The Summer Palace Collection, 2000, p. 66 (fig. 1). The Summer Palace, the imperial summer resort, is situated northwest of Beijing and originally comprised of five gardens; one of which, the Garden of Clear Ripples, Qing Yi Yuan, was renamed the Yi He Yuan in 1886. The existing collection in the Yi He Yuan was formed by Empress Dowager Cixi after the Boxer Rebellion in 1902.

A similar apple-green jadeite fangding from the Jingguantang Collection was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 November 1996, lot 602.

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