incense-burner
- Museum number
- 1909,0512.29
- Description
-
Ceramic incense burner in the shape of a mountain, often called a hill jar, or 'boshan lu', a burner in the shape of the "universal mountain". Around the sides animals (tiger, chimera, etc.) prowl through a hilly landscape. Covered with a lead green glaze, now partly iridescent from exposure, it rests on three bear-shaped feet. Lid composed of mountain peaks, in a series of ranges.
- Production date
- AD25-220
- Dimensions
-
Height: 24.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Michaelson 2006:
During the Han dynasty a new interest in landscape emerged which became a recurrent feature of Chinese art. There are many poems written at this time celebrating the royal hunts that took place in the imperial game parks as a formal display of imperial power. Mystics who sought immortality would retreat into the isolation of a beautiful landscape. This pottery burner would have been a later version, for burial only, of earlier bronze incense burners.
It seems that people hoped, if they achieved immortality, they would rise as adepts and wander among mythical animals, such as the tiger or chimera shown here. The swirling, painterly style of landscape portrayed on this burner is moulded with Daoist motifs beneath the lead glaze and resembles that on contemporary lacquers. The mountain-shaped lid of the censer refers to the sacred dwellings of the immortals. The Kunlun mountains were considered to be located in one of the two main paradises where it was thought the immortals lived, ruled by the Queen Mother of the West. The tiger and hills shown here are comparable in style to those woven in the brocades of the period. On the original bronze incense burners there would have been holes from which the incense would have swirled out, imitating the cloud formations over the tops of mountains.
- Location
- On display (G33/dc9a/s1)
- Acquisition date
- 1909
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1909,0512.29
- Additional IDs
-
Other BM number: Franks.1484.6
