438.
A HARDSTONES-INLAID CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL TRIPOD INCENSE BURNER WITH COVER AND STAND, DING
Qing dynasty, Qianlong period
30 cm high
Provenance: Naples, Villa della Floridiana, Museo Duca di Martina, Placido de Sangro (1829-1891) collection.
inv. n. 5295.
The compressed globular body standing on three cabriole legs issuing from lion’s masks, the domed cover with a band of ruyi heads with a lotus flower reserved on an openwork ground and surmounted by a knop pierced with flowers and leaves, between the shoulder of the body and the rim of the mouth two gilt metal handles shaped as a xiezhi, the exterior of the container sparsely decorated in pink, blue and turquoise enamels on a gilt ground with lotus flower scrolls and stylized shou (“long life”) and wan (“thousands”) characters, the whole incense burner raised on a circular basement with incised floral scrolls, a flower head to the centre and a leiwen band to the rim, the disc supported by a gilt pedestal inlaid with twelve oval hardstones, the six feet shaped as ruyi heads and decorated with incised floral scrolls.
Before the eighteenth century, the champlevé technique was used only sporadically in China (see for example the early fifteenth century tripod censer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. n. 2015.500.6.32a, b, in which it is used in combination with the cloisonné technique). The arrival in China at the end of the seventeenth century of European metal artefacts with polychrome enamel decoration stimulated local production on precise indications from the Kangxi emperor who greatly appreciated those novelties from abroad. Thanks to the technical support of Jesuit missionaries skilled in artistic production, the imperial manufacturers in Beijing began to experiment with enamel painting on metal, obtaining noteworthy results as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. In that same period, the artists and craftsmen active in Guangzhou (Canton) – the port city in southern China which housed the commercial bases of the European East India Companies – also successfully tackled not only the technique of enamel painting on metal, but also with the use of champlevé, creating works of great quality, often destined to imperial palaces such as the Yuanming Yuan (Tributes from Guangdong to the Qing Court, Hong Kong 1987, p. 54).
Elaborate items like the present incense burner perfectly incarnate the aesthetics of the Qianlong period. As a passionate collector of archaic bronzes, as well a forward-looking promoter of all the arts, Qianlong encouraged a development of a taste in which influences from the past boldly combined with more modern solutions, as exemplified by this incense burner characterised by archaistic elements, such as the shape, and an original treatment of the decorative techniques.
The mythical animal which appears as handles on this incense burner could be probably identified with a xiezhi because of the presence of a single horn and of the paws instead of hooves. Because of its ability to discern the truth from the falsehood, piercing liars with its horn, it became the emblem of the Censoriate, a group of court officials. According to the Shujing (“The Book of Documents”) and the Shijing (“The Classic of Poetry”), the judge Gao Yao – who lived during the Xia dynasty period – usually asked to a xiezhi to help him in detecting the guilty party from the innocent.
