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Lot Essay
The current example follows the style of the Xuande bronze censer, reflecting the cultural refinement and archaistic revival during the Qianlong reign. The less decorative style of the plain surface is taken as a model of excellent artistry, its simplicity is perfectly suited for a more spiritual purpose: the prayers rising to heaven as does the smoke from the censer, purifying worship during ritual ceremonies.
This exceptional imperial censer is striking for its large size and weight. It is extremely rare to find a bronze censer weighing approximately 28 kg – unusually heavy in proportion to its size – which is one reason it has been suggested that it may have had another function, being used as a weight for pressing down sutras or religious texts.
Bronze censers with cast Qianlong six-character marks of such impressive size and weight are extremely rare. Bronze censers in the collection of the Beijing Palace Museum dated to the Qing period number fewer than one hundred. One-sixth of those recorded are small in size. Such an example, similar in form (13.7 cm. in diameter) and with an almost identical mark, is in the Beijing Palace Museum Collection, and is illustrated on the museum website.
Nearly all other imperial Qing examples have apocryphal Xuande marks. Only a few examples cast with an imperial Qianlong reign mark are held in international collections. A Qianlong-marked bronze five-piece altar set with nearly identical marks (fig. 1 a & b) is in the Robert Claque Collection and illustrated by R. Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, Phoenix Art Museum, 1993, pp. 180-5, no. 38, where the author suggests that the Qianlong cast thread-relief mark is like those on Yongzheng bronzes. However, unlike the current censer, that five-piece altar set is finely decorated around the sides in high relief.
For examples of bronze vessels cast with the Yongzheng six-character mark, see ibid. p. 177, no. 37, and another sold at Christie’s New York, 15 September, 2011, lot 1160.
Ronald W. Longsdorf remembers that the censer was considered expensive when acquired by his mother, Marguerite M. Longsdorf (1915-1991) in the mid-1960s for 80 USD. It stood for 50 years at the entrance to her house and served as the receptacle into which her daily mail was placed.
This exceptional imperial censer is striking for its large size and weight. It is extremely rare to find a bronze censer weighing approximately 28 kg – unusually heavy in proportion to its size – which is one reason it has been suggested that it may have had another function, being used as a weight for pressing down sutras or religious texts.
Bronze censers with cast Qianlong six-character marks of such impressive size and weight are extremely rare. Bronze censers in the collection of the Beijing Palace Museum dated to the Qing period number fewer than one hundred. One-sixth of those recorded are small in size. Such an example, similar in form (13.7 cm. in diameter) and with an almost identical mark, is in the Beijing Palace Museum Collection, and is illustrated on the museum website.
Nearly all other imperial Qing examples have apocryphal Xuande marks. Only a few examples cast with an imperial Qianlong reign mark are held in international collections. A Qianlong-marked bronze five-piece altar set with nearly identical marks (fig. 1 a & b) is in the Robert Claque Collection and illustrated by R. Mowry, China’s Renaissance in Bronze, Phoenix Art Museum, 1993, pp. 180-5, no. 38, where the author suggests that the Qianlong cast thread-relief mark is like those on Yongzheng bronzes. However, unlike the current censer, that five-piece altar set is finely decorated around the sides in high relief.
For examples of bronze vessels cast with the Yongzheng six-character mark, see ibid. p. 177, no. 37, and another sold at Christie’s New York, 15 September, 2011, lot 1160.
Ronald W. Longsdorf remembers that the censer was considered expensive when acquired by his mother, Marguerite M. Longsdorf (1915-1991) in the mid-1960s for 80 USD. It stood for 50 years at the entrance to her house and served as the receptacle into which her daily mail was placed.