AN INSCRIBED GILT-BRONZE CENSER

Besides the seal reading Qian Qing Gong, the other two inscriptions read 'shang yong' and 'wu nian gong bu nei zao'. 'Shang yong' implies that this censer was for imperial use, and 'wu nian gong bu nei zao' suggests that this was produced by the Imperial Ministry of Works in the fifth year.
See a similar imperial bronze censer depicted in the painting 'Hongli Appraising', showing the Emperor Qianlong in an interior setting featuring numerous antiques and scholarly objects, illustrated in The Golden Exile: Pictorial Expressions of the School of Western Missionaries' Artworks of the Qing Dynasty Court, Macau, 2002, pl. 41.