brazier
- Museum number
- 1931,0216.1
- Description
-
Stoneware brazier with cover and overhead handle decorated in openwork. Probably based on a bronze prototype, this stoneware brazier has a curved overhead handle and an overhanging cover with a circular knob. It has rounded sides, a raised ridge at the centre and a flared foot with a ring of holes and a stepped edge. A design of holes and coins carved in openwork covers the upper half of the brazier and cover. An examination of the base reveals that its construction is similar to that of vases and bowls made at the Longquan kilns in the fourteenth century. Through a large opening in the centre of the base can be seen the bottom of an inner bowl which forms a seal. The foot ring is broad and irregular. Made of coarse dark brown clay, the brazier exhibits patches of an accidental green glaze resulting from ash falling on to the pot and fusing with the body during firing in the kiln.
- Production date
- 1579 (Said to be from a dated tomb)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 23 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Harrison-Hall 2001:
When it was bought by the Museum from Mrs Torrance, under R. L. Hobson's curatorship, in 1931, it was said that the brazier came from a tomb dated 1579 in Sichuan. Loose clay on the surface suggests it originated from a burial context. Comparison of the dark clay body to earlier shards in the Museum's collections with a Sichuan provenance shows them to be very similar. Mrs Torrance's husband, the Revd Th. Torrance, was stationed at Chengdu in Sichuan. Analogous bronze and gilt-bronze braziers with overhead handles and related openwork decoration are known. One such brazier signed by Fengjiang and dated on stylistic grounds to the late sixteenth century is illustrated by Paul Moss and Gerard Hawthorn.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1931
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1931,0216.1