Bronze censer with tortoise and baby tortoise
Category
Art / Sculpture
Date
c. 1801 - 1899
Materials
Bronze
Measurements
110 x 160 mm
Place of origin
China
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 435477
Summary
Bronze, censer, tortoise with a baby tortoise on its back, Chinese, probably 19th century.
Full description
Bronze incense burner in the shape of a tortoise with a baby tortoise on its back. Incense is placed in the body of the adult tortoise by the removing lid formed of its shell with the baby tortoise functioning as handle. Apertures are punched into the tortoise’s body and shell to release incense smoke. In China incense is burned as part of daily and religious rituals, for medicinal reasons, and as an art form in itself. Often to accompany tea-drinking and guqin-playing, the art of xiangdao is performed with special paraphernalia such as this bronze tortoise burner as well as moulds for shaping incense powder into symbols, tongs, spatulas and ceramic containers. Tortoises and turtles are auspicious animals in East Asian cultures, symbolising longevity. Alice Rylance-Watson October 2018
Provenance
Purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) from Edward John Peregrine Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow, C. St J. (b.1936) in 1984.
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by the National Trust in 1994)