Tripod Brazier

This three-legged incense burner is in the form of an ancient ritual-bronze food vessel (li). In the Song and Jin dynasties, Confucian scholars revived interest in collecting objects from the past and published catalogues illustrating historical jades and bronzes. Craftsmen often reproduced their shapes in other materials, particularly ceramics, but these vessels would have new functions. This brazier would probably have been used on an altar for burning incense, rather than as a ritual food vessel for offerings to ancestors, as it would have been employed in ancient times.