A SMALL FINE GOLD AND SILVER-WIRE INLAID BRONZE TRIPOD INCENSE BURNER, DING18th century Exquisitely cast with a globular body supported on three tapering legs, finely inlaid with gold and silver wire with archaistic taotie masks, the lipped rim with a pair of loop handles, with hongmu cover. 10cm (4in) high. (2). Please note this Lot is to be sold at No Reserve. 本拍品不設底價 清十八世紀 錯金銀三足銅香爐 Provenance : Adrian Joseph, Hong Kong, June 1984 來源 ：Adrian Joseph，香港，1984年6月 Tripod vessels were the most favoured of all archaic Chinese bronzes, especially in the 18th century, and they were widely imitated in Ming and Qing decorative arts. Although the ancient bronze tripods were cooking vessels, the later imitations 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.pare with a related gold-inlaid bronze tripod incense burner, illustrated in Refined Pleasures in the Study: Treasures and Curious from Traditional Study , Taipei, 2007, p.67. The archaic revival style, as seen in the form and decoration on the present lot, was also one advocated by the Qianlong emperor who is recorded to have exhorted his Court and craftsmen to look to China's archaic past for moral guidance and artistic inspiration.