Live Auction 21604The Ann & Gordon Getty Collection: Volume 1 | Important Pictures and Decorative Arts, Evening Sale
A PAIR OF MASSIVE CHINESE CLOISONNÉ AND CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL CRANE-FORM CENSERS
Lot 7

A PAIR OF MASSIVE CHINESE CLOISONNÉ AND CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL CRANE-FORM CENSERS

QING DYNASTY, 18TH-19TH CENTURY

Closed20 October 2022

Price Realised

USD 1,620,000

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A PAIR OF MASSIVE CHINESE CLOISONNÉ AND CHAMPLEVÉ ENAMEL CRANE-FORM CENSERS
QING DYNASTY, 18TH-19TH CENTURY
Each crane is shown standing on a brightly colored grassy mound above a faceted base. The body of each bird is decorated with a dense pattern of gilt wires and is set with separately made wings, and each clutches in its beak a branch of lingzhi that forms a pricket candlestick.
91 and 92 1/2 in. (231 and 235 cm.) high

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, Paris, 18-19 November 2002, lot 511.
Acquired by Ann and Gordon Getty from the above.

Specialist note

Pairs of similar, large, cloisonné enamel crane-form incense burners can be seen in photographs illustrated by Wang-go Weng and Yang Boda in The Palace Museum: Peking, Treasures of the Forbidden City, New York, 1982; one pair grasping lingzhi-form candlesticks in their beaks in the Palace of Heavenly Purity, p. 25, the other pair shown flanking the throne in the Hall of Great Harmony, pp. 44-45, where the authors note that the various enamel censers, including the pair of cranes, "emitted fragrant smoke that spiraled upward to envelop the Son of Heaven in ethereal haze."