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Lot Essay
This exquisite censer is extraordinarily well-crafted and features strong colors precisely applied within fine, accurately bent wires that delineate the contours of the emphatic design. This refinement is echoed in the precise execution of the key-fret pattern around the edges of the mouth rim, the elegantly splayed rope-twist handles, and the superb casting of the pierced cover decorated with five-clawed dragons amidst vaporous clouds below stalks of lingzhi that rise like flames on the bud-form finial.
The proportions of the censer, with its generously rounded body tapering to the three tiny feet, are similar to a Kangxi mark-and-period cloisonné enamel censer in the Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 43 - Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 83, no. 80. Also illustrated, p. 82, no. 79, is another Kangxi mark-and-period cloisonné enamel censer in the Qing Court Collection that is also raised on three small tapering feet, but has a broader, more compressed body and plain loop handles. Similar small tapering feet can also be seen on the painted enamel tripod censer, bearing a Kangxi yuzhi mark, from the Alfred Morrison Collection, Fonthill House, sold at Christie’s London, 9 November 2004, lot 21.
Similar treatment of the lotus blossoms can be seen on the cloisonné enamel ‘champion vase’ dated to the Kangxi period from the Springfield Museums Collection, and formerly in the collection of George Walter Vincent Smith (1832-1923), sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 November 2020, lot 2907. See also, a Kangxi-period cloisonné enamel vase with similar lotus scroll decoration, from the collection of Juan Jose Amezaga, sold at Christie’s Paris, 13 June 2007, lot 19.
The proportions of the censer, with its generously rounded body tapering to the three tiny feet, are similar to a Kangxi mark-and-period cloisonné enamel censer in the Qing Court Collection, Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in The Complete Collection of Treasures of the Palace Museum - 43 - Metal-bodied Enamel Ware, Hong Kong, 2002, p. 83, no. 80. Also illustrated, p. 82, no. 79, is another Kangxi mark-and-period cloisonné enamel censer in the Qing Court Collection that is also raised on three small tapering feet, but has a broader, more compressed body and plain loop handles. Similar small tapering feet can also be seen on the painted enamel tripod censer, bearing a Kangxi yuzhi mark, from the Alfred Morrison Collection, Fonthill House, sold at Christie’s London, 9 November 2004, lot 21.
Similar treatment of the lotus blossoms can be seen on the cloisonné enamel ‘champion vase’ dated to the Kangxi period from the Springfield Museums Collection, and formerly in the collection of George Walter Vincent Smith (1832-1923), sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30 November 2020, lot 2907. See also, a Kangxi-period cloisonné enamel vase with similar lotus scroll decoration, from the collection of Juan Jose Amezaga, sold at Christie’s Paris, 13 June 2007, lot 19.