A MASSIVE PAIR OF PAINTED RED POTTERY FIGURES OF OFFICIALS TANG DYNASTY

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A MASSIVE PAIR OF PAINTED RED POTTERY FIGURES OF OFFICIALS TANG DYNASTY

Each finely modeled standing with hands clasped holding a gui tablet and staring straight ahead, but one with his head tilted slightly back, wearing an official's cap and breast and back plates belted around the waist and secured by straps over the shoulders of the short, orangy-red robe with curved stand-up collar and black borders at the edges of the deep sleeves, the tips of the cloud-toe shoes protruding from beneath the hem of the long skirt, each broad face sensitively modeled with distinctive features, with traces of orangy red, red, pale blue and black pigment and some gold foil remaining
43¼in. (110cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

The figure with more almond-shaped eyes is similar to one of a pair of officials from the tomb of Li Siben, buried in 709 A.D. in Xingyuan village near Yanshi, Henan province, illustrated in Kaogu, 1986, no. 5, pl. VII:2

Both figures can be compared to a figure from the Eumorfopoulos Collection, though with different treatment to the base and arms, illustrated by John Ayers, Far Eastern Ceramics in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1980, col. pl. 10

See also a single figure sold in these rooms, May 30, 1990, lot 292

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 866b54 is consistent with the dating of this lot