AN ARCHAIC BRONZE INCENSE BURNER AND COVER, BOSHANLU

Estimated Value:

3.000 € - 5.000 €

Schätzpreis:

8.500 €

Description:

China, Han dynasty
H. 24 cm
The phoenix cast with wings spread wide, standing above two chi dragons strangling a tortoise within a concaved dish, all supporting a large semi-spherical cup, the pierced cover depicting a mountainous scene.
Important Austrian private collection, acquired in the 1990s
Publ. Zeileis: 'From Shang to Qing - Three and a Half Millennia of Chinese Bronze', 1999, no. 139, pp. 348-349
'Boshan' censers developed in the Western Han dynasty as a visually splendid class of incense burners that would have been used in daily life or in rituals related to cults of immortality. The mountain form refers to the mythical peaks where immortals lived, and the visual effect would have been fully realized when the smoke from the incense wafted through the pierced holes to imitate the natural movement of mist in the lofty landscape. See an excavated example of a boshanlu also supported on a bird, unearthed in Shanxi province in 1982, illustrated in Zhongguo Qingtongqi Quanji 12. Qin Han, Beijing, 1998, p.129, no.127
Very slightly chipped, partly slightly corroded, greenish patina

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