A RARE INSCRIBED 'DING' FOUR-LEGGED CENSER YUAN DYNASTY, DATED ZHIYUAN 22ND YEAR, CORRESPONDING TO 1285

of square section, the gently bilobed sides of the vessel rising to a short recessed waist and upright galleried rim with indented corners, all supported on four cabriole legs in the shape of four-clawed feet issuing from monster-masks, the lobes carved with a slightly recessed taotie mask centered on the vessel's corners and patterned with granulation, the neck incised with classic scroll, the outer face of the rim incised with the characters xiang hua gong yang (presenting incense and flowers) amid cloud scrolls, the white body covered in a clear glaze pooling to an ivory tint in the recesses, the underside of the body incised with the characters Zhiyuan er shi er nian san yue ri zao (made in the third month of the twenty-second year of Zhiyuan)

English Private Collection.
Sotheby's London, 10th June 1997, lot 15. 
Collection of Bernadette and William M. B. Berger, Denver, Colorado, acquired in 1997.

Tears in the clay from the manufacturing process, particularly at the interior and one along the underside of the body. The underside of each foot with normal wear and drill holes from thermoluminescence testing, and three additional holes at the interior of the vessel above the legs. One small hairline crack at the rim (approx. 3 mm).
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

No other Dingyao incense burner of related form or design appears to have been published. Any dated Ding wares are extremely rare, as are Ding wares dateable to the Yuan dynasty in general.

To judge from the inscription xiang hua gong yang, a phrase borrowed from the Diamond Sutra, the piece was probably commissioned together with a pair of flower vases to be donated to a Buddhist temple to commemorate a special occasion.

Tong Yihua lists another white incense burner with animal-mask design in the Zhongguo lidai taoci kuanshi huiji, Hong Kong, 1984, p. 54, with the same inscription but dated to the thirty-second year of Khubilai Khan's zhiyuan reign period (equivalent to 1295), which in fact was the first year of his grandson's reign, a year after his death, as well as a white flower vase dated equivalent to 1282.

Another Ding piece dated to the Yuan dynasty is a very large vase with fixed ring handles from the Eumorfopoulos collection, now in the British Museum, illustrated in Hobson, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection Catalogue of Chinese, Corean and Persian Pottery and Porcelain, vol. 3, 1926, pl. XXVII, no. C132, which is dated by an ink inscription in accordance with 1350.

In the Yuan dynasty, ceramic altar vessels of bronze form were made by various kilns, particularly those at Longquan and Jingdezhen, yet it is rare to find a Ding piece so closely imitating a contemporary metal incense burner. This censer shares its square quatrefoil lobed form with a bronze censer of the same period, perhaps also with related archaistic decoration (degraded), recovered from a ship wrecked off the coast of Korea around 1323, and included in the Special Exhibition of Cultural Relics Found off the Sinan Coast, National Museum of Korea, Seoul, 1977, cat. no. 270.

The dating of this lot is consistent with the result of a thermoluminescence test, Oxford sample no. B66j10.