† A PARCEL-GILT SILVER TRIPOD CENSER, XINGYOUHENG TANG MARK, DAOGUANG-EARLY XIANFENG PERIOD

拍品描述

† A PARCEL-GILT SILVER TRIPOD CENSER, XINGYOUHENG TANG MARK, DAOGUANG-EARLY XIANFENG PERIOD Expert’s note The mark on the present censer, Dingfu Xingyouhengtang zhen shang (‘installed in the [Prince's] official residence, the Hall of Constancy, to be treasured and enjoyed’), identifies it as having belonged to Prince Ding, Zaiquan (1794-1854), the Fifth Prince of the Qing dynasty. According to the Jingshi Fangxiang Zhigao (Draft of the Records of Streets and Alleys in the Capital), the Xingyouheng Tang was located in present-day Xisi (Gangwashi) in Beijing, west of the Forbidden City. A great-great-grandson of the Qianlong Emperor, Zaiquan held a distinguished position at court and served in important imperial offices until his death in 1854. Beyond his official career, he was a discerning collector of art and antiquities, and it appears that he regularly had objects from his collection inscribed with his hallmark. His collector's seal with the same nine-character inscription appears on a Yuan dynasty painting by Qian Xuan titled Laiqin zhizi tu (Crabapple and Gardenia), in the collection of the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, accession number F1917.183 (fig. 1). For his biography see Arthur W. Hummel, Eminent Chinese of the Ch’ing Period, Taipei, 1991, pp. 728-729. China, 1820-1854. Finely hollow-cast, of archaic li ding form, supported on three cylindrical feet, rising to a waisted neck with everted rim, set by a pair of upright loop handles, the exterior richly decorated with three taotie masks worked in high relief on a leiwen ground, divided by narrow flanges, all heightened with gilt. The underside incised with a nine-character seal mark Dingfu Xingyouhengtang zhen shang. Dimensions: Height 17.3 cm With a padded storage box. (2) The iconic li ding form and richly worked decoration of the present lot recall the celebrated bronzes of Hu Wenming, the renowned Yunjian metalworker active during the late Ming dynasty. Hu’s works were already highly prized during his lifetime, while the continued imitation of his style and use of his name on later bronzes attest to his enduring authority among Qing-dynasty metalworkers and collectors. Like Hu’s finest vessels, the present lot freely reinterprets ancient ritual bronze forms, combining powerful taotie masks with intricate leiwen grounds to create an object at once antiquarian and richly ornamental. Hu Wenming however preferred to work in bronze as opposed to silver; see a related tripod censer by the artist in the Saint Louis Art Museum, object number 7:2005a,b. See also a related earlier bronze liding, likely serving as a prototype to the present lot, dated late Shang-early Western Zhou dynasty, at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 4 April 2016, lot 2908. Literature comparison: Compare a related gold and silver-inlaid bronze ding, 18.4 cm high, dated to the Qing dynasty, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, reference number 中銅000929N000000000. Auction result comparison: Type: Related Auction: Bonhams London, 12 May 2008, lot 247 Price: GBP 16,800 or approx. EUR 32,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing Expert remark: Compare the closely related form and motifs. Note the bronze ground, silvered decoration, and much larger size (34.6 cm). 13% VAT will be added to the hammer price additional to the buyer's premium - only for buyers within the EU.

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