A large bronze 'elephant and Luohan' incense burner and cover


Ming DynastyThe figure cast seated atop a caparisoned elephant, depicted with the left arm clutching a scroll and the right hand resting on his raised right knee, dressed in long flowing robes falling into voluminous pleats and incised with clouds and cranes and pierced cloud-form openings for smoke, the shaved head with the prominent elongated brow of age and wisdom, the elephant with its head turned sharply to the left, its curled trunk flanked by a pair of sharp tusks, the bronze patinated to an attractive dark chocolate-brown tone 38.5cm (15 1/8in) long. (2).
|明 銅迦理迦尊者騎象香爐The Luohan riding the elephant can be identified as Kalika, one of the Eighteen Arhats also known as the 'Elephant Riding Luohan' (騎象羅漢). Compare with a related bronze Guanyin on an elephant, late Ming to Qing dynasty, illustrated in The Second Bronze Age: Later Chinese Metalwork, Hong Kong, 1991, no.7.