Bronze rectangular censer (attributed as cast by Master Jiang of the Song dynasty), Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279) or later-China Archive

Image Number: K1A000437N000000000PAD
Dynasty: Southern Song dynasty
Category: Bronzes
Function: Incense ware
Material: Minerals/Metals/
Description:
After the Southern Song Dynasty, the “Legend of the Song Dynasty Jiang’s Bronze Square Furnace” was decorated with a circular pattern, thin lines, and the cover was carved in the shape of a swastika and a swastika. The bronze wax tea had a seal character on the bottom: “In the second year of Shaoxing, Su Hanchen, the minister of the Daning factory, supervised the casting of the Jiang’s bronze altar for the purpose of virtue.” It was mentioned in the (Ming) Gao Lian’s Zunsheng Bajian that people at that time loved the newly cast bronze ware by Jiang Niangzi in Hangcheng in the Yuan Dynasty, It is characterized by “its wax is also refined, its copper smelting is also clean, it is exquisite and brocade, and its patterns can also be seen because of the ancient way of making things”. In the early Qing Dynasty, Wang Shizhen (1634-1711)’s Ju Yi Lu also saw the same square stove in Kong Shangren (1648-1718)’s collection, so this kind of incense stove should be spread in the southern part of the Yangtze River in the 17th century.