Beschreibung:

A RARE IMPERIAL PAIR OF CLOISONNÉ-ENAMEL AND GILT-BRONZE INCENSE-STICK HOLDERSQianlong incised four-character marks and of the period
Each in the form of a circular shallow dish, brightly enamelled to the interior with four yellow cartouches, each enclosing a chilong against a dense floral ground, centred with a small holder shaped as a miniature bottle vase of hu form, the exterior with a profusion of lotus blossoms and buds, all reserved against a turquoise-blue ground, the base incised with the four-character mark within a gilt-bronze medallion in the centre. 11cm (4 2/8in) diam. (2).Footnotes清乾隆 掐絲琺瑯螭龍纏枝花卉紋香插
「乾隆年製」刻款
Provenance: a Normandy private collection, France
來源：諾曼底私人收藏，法國
The present pair of incense holders are remarkable examples of luxury furnishings which the Qing Court surrounded itself within the palaces of the Forbidden City in Beijing. They display the technical virtuosity and outstanding quality of enamelling and casting at the highest level, achieved at the Palace Workshops, Qingdai Gongting Zaobanchu (清宮造辦處), during the Qianlong reign.
The small bottle-shaped container fitted with a hollow hole at the centre was meant to hold the incense stick upright, and the shallow dish received the ashes of the burned incense.
A related cloisonné-enamel incense stick holder, Qianlong mark and of the period, is illustrated in The National Palace Museum, A Special Exhibition of Incense Burners and Perfumers Throughout the Dynasties, Taipei, 1994, no.95, p.241. See also another very similar example illustrated in Chinese Cloisonné: The Clague Collection, Phoenix, 1980, p.116, pl.51.
The archaistic designs of sinuous chilong recall the creatures cast on archaic ritual vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasty and reflect the Emperor's appreciation of the past, with the opulence and grandeur representing the Qing Court's taste, at the height of the Qing dynasty. The Qianlong Emperor was a keen collector of objects of the past, advocating to restore ancient ways, suggesting that craftsmen turn to antiquity for models which would enable them to imbue their designs with simplicity and honesty in order to achieve refinement and elegance.
Compare with a nearly-identical pair of cloisonné-enamel incense stick holders, Qianlong incised four-character marks and of the period, which was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 June 2015, lot 3269.