A LARGE BRONZE INCENSE BURNERJapan, Meiji period, 1870-1880 circa114 cm highThe monumental incense burner – in bronze with a reddish patina and gold details – consists of a circular section base supporting another similar but smaller base with five feet shaped a stylized pair of fishes facing each other amidst sea waves, this basement with five fishes arranged at equal distances from each other; the cylindrical container is flanked by two large rampant dragon-shaped handles; the lid is surmounted by a complex composition consisting of a rock with a dragon, a small tortoise and an imposing figure of a bearded man, dressed in a large robe, with a hat topped with a dragon and in his hands a tray on which a brass sphere is placed; the whole outer surface embossed with stylized wave grounds, aquatic animals, birds and dragons.Provenance: Italian private collection.This incense burner is a refined bronze artifact made in Japan explicitly to be exported to Europe and the United States, where such objects were highly appreciated, exhibited with constancy in the Japanese pavilions in the Universal Expositions that from the mid-nineteenth century were organized in the major cities of the planet.The refined figure that surmounts this specimen is Ryūjin, the Dragon King. A well-known legend in Japan tells of the jewel that Ryūjin gave as a gift to Takenouchi no Sukune, a brave hero of Japanese mythology, for killing a horrible monster that terrorized seas and oceans.A sculpture very similar to the one on the lid of this incense burner is part of a famous bronze group - in which, in addition to Ryūjin, his attendant and the hero also appear - kept at the Dallas Museum of Art (inv. 1993.86.11 .FA), made in the seventies of the nineteenth century in the atélier of the Sanseisha Company, to which this example can probably also be attributed.