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Chinese brass bowl

by Peter
(Australia)

I have a chinese brass bowl with 12 markings in the shape of a square on bottom, was wondering if anyone knows what I have & when roughly it was made, any help much appreciated... Thanx

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Dec 30, 2010
 censer mark
by: peter

Hello,
Is it possibly made of bronze rather than brass?
First, the mark says it was "made during the Xuande reign of the Ming dynasty under supervision of the ??? official Wu ?? of the work department", as far as I can read it.

If it were real, it would be Ming dynasty, but in fact most censers having the Xuande mark aren't. Most bronze censers I have seen have a Ming dynasty Xuande reign mark, even completely new ones. The Xuande marks are more for decoration, it seems.
That is probably because of a possibly true story about a very large quantity of censers being produced by court order, for distribution. But it seems not long after they were melted again as the empire needed the metal.

The quality of the characters isn't sufficient to be from that time, I think. But it takes experience and a hands-on inspection to tell if it is old or fake, and how old it could be.

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