each supported on four cabriole legs modelled with a mythical beast mask baring its teeth and fangs and consuming its own body, the body flanked by a pair of dragon handles, the exterior of the body decorated with soaring dragons chasing flaming pearls against a ground of tempestuous waves, the base with an apocryphal six-character Xuande mark, the domed cover reticulated with two chilong and surmounted by a roaring lion with its cub

Left:
Sotheby's London, 31st October 1986, lot 244.
Christie's London, 6th November 1995, lot 219 . 

The dynamic scene of dragons amidst waves is a Xuande innovation, visible on porcelain and lacquer of the period, and the finely cast, high-relief decoration on both these incense burners and covers is evocative of that era. This is a type of incense burner where there has been debate as to whether the Xuande marks are apocryphal or not. A tripod bronze incense burner of similar casting style and iconography in the National Palace Museum, Taiwan was catalogued as Xuande mark and period in 1979 by Zhang Guangyuan in his extensive work 'Liujin jingdiao Da Ming Xuande lu', published in the National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art, part 1, April, 1979, pp. 62-77 and part 2, May, 1979, pp. 96-106. However, it is now apparent that the whole group of incense burners of this form date to the late Ming dynasty. A closely related example, dated seventeenth century, sold in our Paris rooms, 16th December 2010, lot 266.