China, 1^st- early 4^th century AD. The censer rises from the center of an integral dish with an everted rim and is raised on a stem foot to a hemispherical bowl surmounted by a lid shaped like a conical mountain. The lid carved with overlapping triangular forms representing mountains, the perforations, partially hidden between the overlapping peaks, intended to release the smoke from the burning incense, as if mysterious clouds were rising from the mountain tops, all topped by an owl form finial. Covered overall in a dark green glaze thinning to brown toward the top.

Provenance: A private collection in Switzerland. Ben Janssens Oriental Art, London, 9 November 2021. Dr. Kenneth P. Lawley (inventory number Cer. 181), acquired from the above. A copy of the original invoice from Ben Janssens, dated 9 November 2021, confirming the dating above, and stating a purchase price for the present lot of GBP 3,200 or approx. EUR 4,500 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Ben Janssens has been an authority in Asian antiquities since the late 1990s. His impressive gallery in the heart of London focuses primarily on early Chinese art, hosting impressive exhibits. Dr. Kenneth P. Lawley (1937-2023) was a chemical physicist in The School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh. His collection started in the early 1960s, and for the first twenty-five years of his collecting career Dr. Lawley made the majority of his purchases from the Davies Street gallery of Bluett and Sons. Working within a fairly small budget – Lawley had a small private income as well as his emoluments from the University of Edinburgh – he often sold pieces back to the firm to finance more expensive purchases.
Condition: Very good condition with minor wear and manufacturing irregularities such as pits and burst glaze bubbles. Applied with a thin layer of varnish.

Weight: 953.9 g
Dimensions: Height 21.5 cm

It is extremely unusual to find an owl finial on a Han dynasty pottery stemmed incense burners. The owl features in Chinese art well before the Shang dynasty, when it becomes quite a common, mysterious motif on bronzes of the period, but it is rarely seen as decoration on pottery.

A boshanlu, or literally, Bo Mountain censer, was a type of incense burner that celebrated the mountain wilderness. Censers were common to altar tables where special incenses were burned in a variety of rituals. Those made in the form of a sacred mountain depict the mystical overlapping peaks of Mount Peng, regarded in Han dynasty Daoist tradition as a paradise realm for the spirits of immortals.

Through the Han and into the Jin, more mountain censers were made in ceramic. This one includes a bird at the top, a feature that also appears in earlier bronze mountain censer designs, as well as older Chinese incense burners that are shaped like chalices (i.e. ritual dou vessels).

Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related Yue stoneware boshanlu with a finial in the form of a recumbent bird, dated to the late Western Jin dynasty, in the collection of The Museum of East Asian Art, Bath, England, record number BATEA: 19. Compare a related Boshanlu censer with a bird form finial, 29.9 cm tall, dated to 1^st-2^nd century, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, accession number 32.54.5a,b. Compare a closely related boshanlu with a finial in the form of a recumbent bird, illustrated in Regina Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Volume I, 1994, p. 66, no. 79.