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Lot Essay
The accompanying wood box of the present censer has an inscription of the Mizoguchi family, a federal clan from the Edo period to the Meiji restoration, 17th-19th century. The Mizoguchi family ruled Shibata domain in the northern part of Niigata prefecture. The family was known for their high cultural standards and devotion to the art of the tea ceremony. The family was also very passionate about art, amassing a collection over many generations consisting primarily of tea ceremony objects.
The shape of this censer, based on that of the ancient bronze li, was produced from the Southern Song into the Yuan period for the domestic as well as the export market. The numerous tripod censers retrieved from the Sinan shipwreck provide evidence that this shape was much sought after in Japan, the original destination of the ship's cargo, and where they have since been widely collected.
The thick, translucent glaze is typical of this type of Southern Song Longquan ware, as is the lack of any decoration other than the flanges. A number of Longquan celadon censers of the same shape are published, including several in renowned museum collections. Examples in the Tokyo National Museum and Percival David Foundation, London, are published in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, 1982, vol. 1, no. 97, and vol. 6, no. 37, respectively. Others include the example illustrated by J. Ayers, The Baur Collection: Chinese Ceramics, vol. I, Geneva, 1972, no. A99; in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan, included in the Illustrated Catalogue of Sung Dynasty Porcelain, Taipei, 1974, no. 12. A larger example (19.7 cm. diam.), found in 1991 in Jinyu village of Nanqiong, Suining city, Sichuan province, is illustrated in Longquan Celadon: The Sichuan Museum Collection, Macau, 1998, pp. 210-11, no. 83.