A fine and rare inlaid gilt-bronze ‘Yingxiong’ Censer Qing Dynasty, Qianlong period

finely cast with a plump mythical beast standing foursquare, the fierce leonine head with bulging eyes beneath thick eyebrows, surmounted by a phoenix perched on its back, the elaborate wings with overlapping feathers all heightened with incised archaistic scrollwork, sweeping back towards the lion’s bushy tail, the bird’s head with eagle beak and curled crest, all embellished with various semi-precious stones including malachite, agate, carnelian, rose-quartz, lapis-lazuli and white jade in a myriad of colours to accent the curling flames and feathers

Beaussant Lefèvre, 10th November 1999, lot 34.

Very fine and elaborately inlaid yingxiong ('champion') censers of this type, in the form of a mythical beast surmounted by a phoenix, are extremely rare. 

A closely related inlaid gilt-bronze censer but with a funnel-shaped opening at the back, formerly in the Herbert R. Bishop Collection and exhibited in the National Academy of Design Exhbition, 1983, was sold in the American Art Galleries, 25th January 1906, lot 2035, and later sold in our New York rooms, 20th-21st November 1973, lot 3000, and again at Christie's London, 15th June 1999, lot 105.  A censer of similar design in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, is illustrated in Special Exhibition of Incense Burners and Perfumers Throughout the Dynasties, Taipei, 1994, cat.no. 119; and another parcel-gilt bronze example was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 1st November 2004, lot 878.

Compare also similarly embellished gilt-censers and covers in the shape of a mythical beast without any surmounts, such as a gilt-copper example in the Victoria & Albert Museum, illustrated in Stephen Bushell, Chinese Art, vol. II, London, 1919, fig. 96.  Compare also two others of related form, a gilt-bronze one which sold in these rooms, 15th May 1990, lot 365; and another sold at Christie's Paris, 15 June 2005, lot 219.