This eighteenth-century cast bronze censer in the shape of an ox is almost entirely decorated using the cloisonné technique. In cloisonné, thin metal strips are placed on a metal body (copper or bronze), between which different colored enamel is applied. The technique, which was first documented in the eastern Mediterranean region, also spread to China in the early Ming period (1368–1644), where this incense burner originates from. Isolated details of the vessel are gilded.

The color scheme of the decoration does not correspond to that of a real ox: tongue-like shapes and tiny circles on a light blue background imitate the structure of its hide; in addition, there are small drawings in intense blue, red, yellow, white, and black. The joints are emphasized by spiral shapes. Delicate, multi-colored flowers on the head underscore the decorative character of the animal sculpture. The saddle is adorned with motifs of water and rock together with regularly distributed stylized clouds. The small, openwork incense burner on the animal’s saddle depicts dragons playing with a pearl. Holes under the hooves suggest that the animal was probably anchored to a base.

Animal figurines were mostly used for practical purposes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—for example, as incense burners like this one, but also as boxes for storing objects, candlesticks, and much more. The often-multicolored animals, whose coloring was generally determined by decorative aspects rather than naturalistic ones, were particularly popular during the time of Emperor Qianlong, from which this ox also originates.

Alongside the rat, tiger, hare, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and wild boar, the ox is the second of the twelve symbolic animals in the Chinese calendar and is regarded as a symbol of spring and agriculture.