Details
A CLOISONNE ENAMEL TRIPOD CENSER
QIANLONG MARK AND OF THE PERIOD (1736-1795)

The compressed body with a leafy lotus scroll bearing flowerheads picked out in red, yellow and green, alternating with white and green buds, below a blue ruyi-head border repeated around each of the mammiform supports, with three floral sprays on the underside surrounding and inlaid gilt-bronze panel incised with the nianhao and with the additional mark heng below, with two loop handles rising from the gilt-bronze rim
4½ in. (11.5 cm.) across

Lot Essay

Brinker and Lutz, Chinese Cloisonne: The Pierre Uldry Collection, p.74, discuss the significance of the fifth character which occasionally, as in the present example, makes an appearance below a Qianlong four-character mark. Its exact significance is obscure. Sometimes it is simply a number between one and five. Alternatively it can define the use and category of the vessel and in addition it probably carries a reverential and auspicious meaning.

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