A FINE AND RARE INSCRIBED DEHUA BLANC-DE-CHINE TRIPOD INCENSE BURNER, DING MING DYNASTY | 明 德化窰白瓷蕉葉雷紋雙耳三足爐 《阮造》款

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 27th October 1992, lot 91.

Christie's Hong Kong, 25th October 1993, lot 816.

香港蘇富比1992年10月27日，編號91

香港佳士得1993年10月25日，編號816

Fine Dehua wares are appreciated for their beauty, pure white pearl-like glaze and for the especially smooth texture of the glaze. It was a ware highly favoured by the literary class who felt that the white glaze reflected and emulated their pure taste. Dehua kilns produced objects for the scholar's desk and the house altars. Incense burners in the form of archaic bronzes after late Shang dynasty tripod ding, such as the present piece, catered to the scholar's antiquarian tastes. Robert H. Blumenfield in Blanc de Chine. The Great Porcelain of Dehua, Berkeley, 2002, p. 21, notes that 'Dehua-made incense burners were used in temples, by families at household altars, or by scholars who sometimes used them to hold scholars' rocks or pebbles (for contemplating nature) or who savoured the smell of incense while they worked.'   

The inscription on the base translates as 'Made by Ruan'. With the exception of six major families in the Ming Dynasty recorded as leading makers of Dehua ware, very little is known about makers of the time. Even for the Qing dynasty there appears to be little biographical material available for Dehua porcelain making. 

For an example of a related Dehua incense burner, see a ding decorated with archaic ornaments illustrated in P.J. Donnelly, Blanc de Chine, London, 1969, pl. 13D. Compare also a fangding decorated with dragon handles and taotie mask feet included in Robert H. Blumenfield, op.cit., p. 23, fig. D; and another archaic style fangding in the Palace Museum, Beijing, illustrated in Zhongguo taoci quanji [Complete series on Chinese ceramics], vol. 13, Shanghai, 2000, pl. 172. Two further examples of Ming Dehua incense burners in the Nanjing Museum and Shanghai Museum are illustrated ibid., pls 171 and 170.

For the inspiration of this piece see a Shang dynasty archaic bronze ding in the Shanghai Museum illustrated in Zhongguo qingtong qi quanji [Complete collection of Chinese archaic bronzes], vol. 4, Beijing, 1998, pl. 5.