A RARE GOLD AND SILVER-WIRE INLAID BRONZE TRIPOD INCENSE BURNER, DINGMing Dynasty Expertly cast with a lobed globular body supported on three tapering feet of circular section issuing from mythical beast-masks, the body decorated with archaistic taotie masks and applied with three mythical beast heads around the body, the rim with a pair of two loop handles. 17cm (6 3/4in) high. Please note this Lot is to be sold at No Reserve. 本拍品不設底價 明 銅掐金銀絲獸面三足鼎 Provenance : Adrian Joseph, Hong Kong, circa 1980s 來源 ：Adrian Joseph，香港，上世紀八十年代 Tripod vessels were the most favoured of all archaic Chinese bronzes, especially in the late Ming dynasty, and they were widely imitated in Ming and Qing decorative arts. Although the ancient bronze tripods were cooking vessels, the later vessels were often made as incense burners. Cao Zhao in the Gegu yaolun (Essential Criteria of Antiquities) had already mentioned in 1388 that archaic bronzes were used as incense burners, noting that 'in earliest times there were no incense burners...Ancient vessels used as incense burners today were sacrificial vessels and not (real) incense burners '; see The Chinese Scholar's Studio: Artistic Life in the Late Ming Period , New York, 1987, p.190. See a related silver-wire inlaid tripod vessel, ding , 17th/early 18th century, illustrated by M.Maucuer, Bronzes de la Chine Imperiale des Song aux Qing , Paris, 2013, p.101, no.52. pare also with a related silver-wire inlaid bronze tripod censer, 16th century, which was sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 3 June 2015, lot 3315. See also a related gold and silver-inlaid bronze tripod incense burner, liding , 17th/18th century, which was sold at London, 2 November 2021, lot 18.