QIANLONG PERIOD (1736-1795)

An almost identical cloisonné enamel censer, and possibly the pair to the present censer, is in the Pierre Uldry Collection and illustrated in H. Brinker and A. Lutz in Chinese Cloisonné: The Pierre Uldry Collection, New York, 1989, pl. 323. The Uldry example, together with a large basin illustrated as pl. 322, are both attributed to the Imperial workshops. The authors note, p. 141, in relation to the censer and basin from the same collection: "an almost simultaneous origin in the second half of the eighteenth century, and in one and the same workshop, presumably the palace workshop in Beijing, can be unreservedly claimed for both pieces.”

Other similar censers supported on cranes include the example in the British Museum, illustrated in China: The Three Emperors, 1662-1795, London, 2006, pl. 304, and the censer with similar 'S'-shaped handles shown in a photograph of the interior of the house of the famous Philadelphian art collector Henry C. Gibson, taken c. 1883-84, illustrated in Cloisonné: Chinese Enamels from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, New York, 2011, p. 204, fig. 10.21. The Gibson censer was one of three cloisonné enamel censer he purchased from the American Centennial Exhibition in 1876.