明天啟 青花獅子香爐
The cover modelled as a lion seated with its head turned to the left, decorated in the fukizumi ink blown technique, the base painted with panels of flowers reserved on a blue ground, Japanese wood box
Height: 14.6cm
Provenance: Purchased in Kyoto, 2014.
For a larger incense burner of similar design, but with its left front leg resting on a brocade ball, please see Butler, Sir Michael, Medley, Margaret, and Little, Stephen,
Seventeenth Century Chinese Porcelain from the Butler Family Collection, 1990, p. 43, pl. 7. This design of a lion standing erect may have been inspired by designs in Ink Garden of the Cheng Family, p. 8.
Sold on behalf of an Asian private collector to an English buyer in November 2021 for £3,300.
