Incense Holders

Qing smoking rooms, a Tibetan shrine, a Bamileke king’s brass pipe. Antique incense holders include burners, censers and pipes from China, Tibet, Nepal, Japan, Indonesia, Morocco and Cameroon. The Chinese lu, a tripod or footed censer cast in bronze since antiquity, appears also in porcelain, copper and brass, often with a foo lion guarding the lid. Tibetan and Nepalese burners take the form of Mahakala, the wrathful protector. Opium pipes and pipe bowls from China, made of bamboo, silver and fired clay, recall the smoking rooms of the late Qing; from the Grassfields of Cameroon come the prestige pipes of Bamileke and Bamun kings, cast in brass or modeled in terra cotta.

Bronze darkened by years of smoke and bamboo polished by hands make these small objects quietly sculptural. A bronze lu on a marble mantel, lit at dusk, scents a room in the oldest way.