19TH CENTURY

Details

A PAIR OF MASSIVE CLOISONNÉ AND CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL CRANE-FORM CENSERS
19TH CENTURY
Each crane is shown standing on a colorful, grassy mound interspersed with orchids and lingzhi. Each body is white with a dense pattern of gilt wires, and the separately-made wings, with small turquoise and large, dark greyish-blue feathers, form the cover. Each crane grasps in its beak a stem of lingzhi that forms a pricket candlestick.
92 in. (234 cm.) and 90 in. (229 cm.) high

Provenance

Private collection, Florida, acquired in the late 1970s.

Brought to you by

Olivia Hamilton

asianartny@christies.com 212-636-2180

Lot Essay

Pairs of similar, large, crane-form incense burners can be seen in photographs illustrated by Wang-go Weng and Yang Boda in The Palace Museum: Peking, Treasures of the Forbidden City, New York, 1982; one pair grasping lingzhi-form candlesticks in their beaks in the Palace of Heavenly Purity, p. 25, the other pair shown flanking the throne in the Hall of Great Harmony, pp. 44-45, where the authors note that the various cloisonné censers, including the pair of cranes, "emitted fragrant smoke that spiraled upward to envelop the Son of Heaven in ethereal haze."

An almost identical pair of cloisonné enamel crane-form censers was sold at Christie's New York, 18 September, 2014, lot 645, and another pair was sold at Christie's New York, 22 March 2019, lot 1794.

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