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4. RARE BOSHANLU STYLE BRONZE CENSER
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Asian Private Collection, acquired in 1990 The hemispherical stem bowl is attached to an openwork lid of domed hill-shape. The entire vessel is covered with an even patina of attractive silvery green tone.. In place of the usual tiers of mountain peaks, the cover is pierced with curvilinear wave-like scrolls topped by a perching bird finial. The stem rises from a wide dish and is embellished with a relief quatrefoil leaf at mid-section. A censer of very similar form also with four leaves around the stem and a bird finial is illustrated by Liu Wan-hang in The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art, December 1984, p. 79 in an article examining the history of incense and incense burners. Another censer with an openwork lid of swirling scroll design with the bowl perched on the head of a bird representing the cardinal direction, south, atop a turtle and snake representing the cardinal direction, north, is published in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Sakamoto Collection, Nara National Museum, 2002, exhibition catalogue no.283. A gilt-bronze boshanlu censer excavated at Ganquan in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province in 1980 with four tiers of mountain peaks is illustrated in Zhongguo Wenwu Jinghua Daquan, volume on Bronzes, p. 339, no. 1218. |
