Heavy Bronze 2-Handle Mortar-Censor...Age??...Chinese??...ID Help

Any help appreciated..4" Tall

 

I'm gonna guess that it is mid-20th C. when lots of bronze mortar and pestle sets about that size were made in many different styles. Those made without figural decoration, like yours, were probably made for actual use and more toward mid-20th C. Those with four lions or gargoyles around the sides were late 20th C. or later and are probably still made. Yours is good quality workmanship, cast then lathe-turned, but I don't think you will be able to get a much earlier dating guess in the absence of markings of any kind. Yours would have come with a cast-bronze pestle. The bronze mortar-and-pestle set is a popular tourist souvenir item in many countries so it is hard to tell if this one was made for that or for grinding herbs etc.

 

>...bronze mortar and pestle sets about that size were made in many different styles. Those made without figural decoration<

I agree. A year to possibly 5 years ago a query was posted about one of these over on eBay antiques. I believe these were commonly found in apothecaries from possibly the mid 1800s to the mid-1900s. Like Spring said were reproduced like in the mid 1900s. Many had the handles like this one. Scan the following page to see some with the handles:
https://www.google.com/search?q=bro...h&q=handled+bronze+pestle+and+mortar&imgdii=_

--- Susan

 

Susan, thanks for posting the image collection, way more variations of those than I'd ever seen.

If anyone is lucky enough to find an original bronze, Dutch 17th or 18th C. apothecary mortar, please be $ure and $upply $pring with $ufficient informa$hun!

 

Thanks Springfld & Sue for your great answers & Pictures!

I have a second one...A little bigger & maybe older??

 

My guess is that the larger one may be older. made for actual use, looking at how scratched up the bottom is, the dents, bends etc. I can see that one having been slid around on a marble counter a good but and dropping off onto the floor a few times.

Smaller one I still think is souvenir type but since it can't talk we won't know, unless someone takes a sample of the bronze and has it analyzed. If there's any trace of aluminum in it, it is probably post-1900, and if not, probably earlier. There was little if any aluminum in the scrap metal trade prior to 1900, and since about that time, there are traces of aluminum contamination in virtually all nonferrous alloys.

 

You are correct...The larger one was banged around alot...The owner even went through the trouble to repair it!

 

"more conducive to the grinding motions"

 

On that Google page of doubled handled mortar images, note the 5th one from the left in the top row- looks shiny. It appears to have the same diamond shape around the handles as yours. It was on the liveauctioneers.com website. I tried to find it, but the site doesn't have it online anymore. When that pic is clicked and go to the site, it says "Sorry auction ended" and has other mortar & pestle pictured.
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10790710_bronze-two-handled-mortar-and-pestle



Without the pestles, the value of yours may be minimal?

--- Susan