EARLY TANG DYNASTY, 7TH CENTURY

See The Silk Road, Treasures of Tang China, Singapore, 1991, Catalogue, pp. 78 and 79, for illustrations of unglazed musicians, and where it is noted that "the music and dance of Tang China reached new heights of sophistication with foreign influence. Foreign music and dance forms entered China via the Silk Road and became immensely popular during the Sui and Tang dynasties. Royalty, aristocrats and the man in the street loved the exotic foreign performing arts. The patronage of early Tang emperors such as Tai Zong, Xuan Zong and the Empress Wu Zetian provided a favorable environment for music and dance to flourish. In those days, music also played an integral part in the literary arts where popular Tang poems would be sung to rhythm and harmony". However, the Tang musicians were not just content to perform foreign music, they merged foreign elements with traditional Chinese styles to create a unique Tang sound. Thereafter, two types of performers appeared in the court, "the indoor sedentary performers" and the "outdoor standing performer." This group belongs to the former type who were accorded a higher status than those who performed outdoors.

For a depiction of Tang dynasty female musicians of this type, with similar hairstyles and costumes, see the rubbings from a stone coffin unearthed in 1973 from the tomb of Li Shou in Sanyuan, Shaanxi province, included in the exhibition, Treasures of Chang'an, Capital of the Silk Road, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1993-1994, Catalogue, pp. 226 and 26, no. 6. A similar group of kneeling female musicians is illustrated by Qin Ting Yu in Zhongguo gudai taoci yishu (Chinese Ancient Ceramic Sculpture and Art), Beijing, 1957, fig. 53.

A group of musicians of similar type in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, are illustrated by Suzanne Valenstein, A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, 1975, no. 22.

See also the set of five musicians sold at Christie's, New York, November 29, 1990, lot 148.