SONG DYNASTY (960-1279)

During the Song dynasty, burning incense became a scholarly pursuit, and was practiced in small interior settings. Exquisite incense burners, such as the present example, are most suitable for use in a scholar’s studio. In the Northern Song painting Tingqin tu in the Palace Museum, Beijing, the main figure sits next to a xiangji on which a small censer, reminiscent of the present example, is seen burning incense. According to some scholars, this figure is probably Emperor Huizong himself.

Compare a large qingbai censer of similar form in the collection of the Tokyo National Museum, illustrated in the Oriental Ceramics: the World’s Great Collections, vol. 1: Tokyo National Museum, Tokyo, 1982, no. 65.