A YELLOW JADE ARCHAISTIC RECTANGULAR INCENSE BURNER AND COVER, FANG DING QING DYNASTY, 19TH CENTURY |

the rectangular body supported by four ox heads projecting cylindrical legs encircled by two raised bands, the sides of the vessel decorated with small birds in low relief, a pair of inverted U-shaped handles resting on a square-cut rim, finely carved with taotie masks flanking on the sides of the tapered cover, surmounted by two lions widening their jaws in a ferocious roar, both facing each other’s back in a rounded stance, the translucent stone of varying tones of yellowish celadon with patches of russet, wood stand

Although a number of jade fang ding was produced from the Qianlong period, it is extremely rare to find the archaistic bird design as seen on the present incense burner, and no other closely related example appears to have been published. A celadon jade fang ding, but with ringed side handles, modelled with a frieze of similarly styled animals above a taotie mask, in the Palace Museum, Beijing, is illustrated in Gugong bowuyuan wenwu cangpin daxi. Yuqi juan/Compendium of Collections in the Palace Museum. Jade, vol. 10, Qing Dynasty, Beijing, 2011, pl. 65. The legs which extend from ox heads on the present piece is also very rare as they are more commonly found extending from taotie masks; for example see a white jade fang ding, from the collection of the Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Blaker, KCMG., MP., sold in these rooms, 19th November 1985, lot 81; and a jadeite version, from the Ernest and Helen Dane collection, sold at Christie’s Hong Kong, 30th May 2012, lot 4275. For the bronze prototype to this vessel, see a fang ding, attributed to the Western Zhou period, similarly cast with masked head legs and raised bosses surrounding a central rectangular plain, all below a dragon band, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, accession no. EA1956.834. Vessels of this form were usually decorated with taotie designs on the body; see a white jade fang ding in the collection of the Asian Museum of San Francisco, illustrated in René-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argencé, Chinese Jades in the Avery Brundage Collection, Tokyo, 1977, pl. LIII; one, in the National Palace Museum, Taipei, included in the Museum’s exhibition Great National Treasures of China, Taipei, 1996, cat. no. 45; and another in the De An Tang Collection, exhibited in A Romance With Jade, Palace Museum, Beijing, 2004, cat. no. 124, and sold in our Hong Kong rooms, 10th April 2006, lot 1757.