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Lot Essay
The censer is of square form and finely enamelled in tones of rose-pink, yellow, blue and turquoise-green. Each side is pierced with an openwork medallion of a coiled archaistic dragon and decorated with a dense brocade-like design of florets in a regular grid, all supported on an elaborate integral stand shaped like a low table with pierced scrollwork aprons. The top of the stand is painted with various delicate scholar’s objects, such as a painting scroll, ruyi sceptre, fan, kundika and so on. The cover is formed like a pavilion roof, with sloping edges and a circular openwork dome pierced with lingzhi within petal panels, surmounted by a knob.
This very rare censer is constructed like a pagoda with glazed tiles, in which smoke slowly rises through the openwork dragon windows during incense burning. It is likely the only known example complete with an original cover and integral stand, making it possibly unique. A Yongzheng yangcai square stand from the Avery Brundage Collection in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is similarly decorated with openwork ‘dragon’ designs on a brocade-like ground, and supported on an integral ‘low table’ decorated in faux bois, illustrated by He Li in Chinese Ceramics, London, 1996, p.305, no.659 (fig. 1). Compare also to a similar Yongzheng reticulated ‘dragon’ censer, richly enamelled on a similar brocade-like ground, but lacking the original cover and stand, in the Alan Chuang Collection and illustrated in The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, no.99.
The brocade decoration on the current censer is possibly inspired by the Tianhua silk brocade which became very popular during the Qing dynasty, featuring an interwoven framework of diverse geometric shapes, and enclosing roundel patterns in the centre. Compare a Kangxi famille rose yellow-ground ‘chi dragon' bowl with a similar brocade ground in the Palace Museum, Taipei, featuring very similar decorative motifs as the present censer (fig. 2).
This very rare censer is constructed like a pagoda with glazed tiles, in which smoke slowly rises through the openwork dragon windows during incense burning. It is likely the only known example complete with an original cover and integral stand, making it possibly unique. A Yongzheng yangcai square stand from the Avery Brundage Collection in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is similarly decorated with openwork ‘dragon’ designs on a brocade-like ground, and supported on an integral ‘low table’ decorated in faux bois, illustrated by He Li in Chinese Ceramics, London, 1996, p.305, no.659 (fig. 1). Compare also to a similar Yongzheng reticulated ‘dragon’ censer, richly enamelled on a similar brocade-like ground, but lacking the original cover and stand, in the Alan Chuang Collection and illustrated in The Alan Chuang Collection of Chinese Porcelain, Hong Kong, 2009, no.99.
The brocade decoration on the current censer is possibly inspired by the Tianhua silk brocade which became very popular during the Qing dynasty, featuring an interwoven framework of diverse geometric shapes, and enclosing roundel patterns in the centre. Compare a Kangxi famille rose yellow-ground ‘chi dragon' bowl with a similar brocade ground in the Palace Museum, Taipei, featuring very similar decorative motifs as the present censer (fig. 2).