A SANCAI-GLAZED CAPARISONED HORSE AND A SANCAI-GLAZED BACTRIAN CAMEL

TANG DYNASTY

Details

A SANCAI-GLAZED CAPARISONED HORSE AND A SANCAI-GLAZED BACTRIAN CAMEL
Tang Dynasty
The horse with head down and mouth open in a neigh, the breast straps applied with foliate-molded plaques, the saddle blanket deeply scored and roughened to simulate fur, the body primarily cream-glazed with amber and green highlights; the braying camel with head raised, the body mainly cream-glazed with amber-glazed textured areas, the saddle cloth with resist decoration
The horse 23in. (58.4cm.) high; the camel 27in. (69.2cm.) high

Lot Essay

Both of these finely modeled and well-detailed figures share characteristics with other figures from the tomb of important personages. The horse, although more simply caparisoned, is similar in pose, decoration between the ears, glaze combinations and the textured fur saddlecloth to one from the tomb of the Tang general, Xianyu Tinghui, who died at the Tang capital in 723 A.D. illustrated by J. Fontein and Tung Wu, Unearthing China's Past, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1973, p. 173, fig. 89.

The bactrian camel is quite similar to one in the collection of Sir Alan and Lady Barlow, and illustrated by M. Sullivan, Chinese Ceramics, Bronze and Jades, London, 1963, pl. 10b. Camels were not indigenous to China. The bactrian camel originated in Central Asia, and like the single-humped dromedary which comes from the Arabian peninsula, was an important element of the silk trade.