19TH CENTURY

Pairs of similar, large, crane-form incense burners can be seen in photographs illustrated by Wang-go Weng and Yang Boda in The Palace Museum: Peking, Treasures of the Forbidden City, New York, 1982; one pair grasping lingzhi-form candlesticks in their beaks in the Palace of Heavenly Purity, p. 25, the other pair shown flanking the throne in the Hall of Great Harmony, pp. 44-45, where the authors note that the various cloisonné censers, including the pair of cranes, "emitted fragrant smoke that spiraled upward to envelop the Son of Heaven in ethereal haze."

An almost identical pair of cloisonné enamel crane-form censers was sold at Christie's New York, 18 September, 2014, lot 645, and another pair was sold at Christie's New York, 22 March 2019, lot 1794.