Description In three parts. The body with a wide horizontal rim on four stubby feet is surmounted by tiered elements, the top one in openwork, the stepped lid with a lion-shaped knob, the ball missing, the body decorated with various bats, blossoms and leafy scrolls on a blue ground. At the base an apocryphal cast seal script mark reading Jingtai niannei zaozhi. The numerous religious and secular buildings of the Forbidden City, the palaces outside of Beijing such as Chengde and the ancestral sacrificial halls at the mausolea, all were furnished not just with images but also with accoutrements. Large censers, lanterns, braziers, cranes, luduan and elephants were arranged in pairs in the omperial throne halls. Many of them were made in the imperial cloisonné workshop. In the cold Beijing winters the most convenient way of heating the halls were large braziers which were filled with burning charcoal. They were of large size, multi-tiered and rose from three or four elephant head feet or cabriole legs. Heating started on the first day of the eleventh month, the Stove Lighting Day. According to rank each person of the imperial household received a certain amount of fuel. The current brazier differs from the Qianlong era braziers, which were round or octagonal and higher in shape, by its low and square form. The apocryphal six-character seal mark points toward the Jingtai era (1450-1457), however its wording is unusual and differs from the standard Jingtai seal marks found on Ming and Qing cloisonné enamel ware.
Dimensions Height 77.5 cm
Literature Compare similar braziers used in the palaces of the Forbidden City illustrated in: Das Leben in der Verbotenen Stadt, Hong Kong 1989, p. 56, fig. 69
Provenance Private collection, Italy
Notes VAT: Margin scheme
