Incense burner with floral pattern
Not on view
This incense burner is an unusual example of how Chinese works were sometimes modified when they came to Europe. The censor’s form is a typical Chinese archaistic reinterpretation of an ancient food vessel, but its decoration—Chinese tree peonies in a landscape setting—was most likely chased from the vessel’s original surface by a European metalsmith. A mark on the base (“ALPH GIROUX PARIS”) reveals that the vessel was once in the collection of Alphonse Giroux (1775/76-1848), a French dealer in luxury goods. It is most likely that the cold-work surface decoration was added in his workshop, reflecting the hybrid nature of Chinoiserie in eighteenth-century Europe.
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