A black lacquered wood six-legged incense stand, xiangji

南宋至元早期   黑漆高束腰六足圓香几

The stand has a circular top supported on a short waisted section. The six elegant cabriole legs rest on a low circular platform, each having a simple turned-up foot extending to a tall recurved section, below a beaded bracket-lobed apron formed from the upper part of each leg and the bracket-shaped section between the tops of each pair of legs. The stand is lacquered in glossy black overall, with some woven material base showing on the underside.

Provenance:
Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 1st and 2nd November 1994, lot 254

Incense stands of the early date and refinement of the present example were probably made for Buddhist use. For a detail of a painting of a stand of comparable proportions, draped with a brocade cloth, from a handscroll by Wang Zhenpeng (c.1280-1329), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, see Sarah Handler, Austere Luminosity of Chinese Classical Furniture, p. 296, Fig. 17.1.

Compare a six-legged red lacquered wood hexagonal incense table of similar size in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, illustrated in Oriental Lacquer Art, no. 234, p. 306-307, where it is attributed to the Northern Song dynasty.

Dimensions: Height: 39 cm, 15 ⅜ inches

Date: Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) or early Yuan dynasty (1279-1368)

Stock No. 2207

Price: On Request