AN UNUSUAL SET OF FIVE PAINTED GRAY POTTERY MUSICIANS AND TWO DANCERS

NORTHERN WEI POTTERY FIGURES

Details

AN UNUSUAL SET OF FIVE PAINTED GRAY POTTERY MUSICIANS AND TWO DANCERS
NORTHERN WEI DYNASTY

Of unusually small size, each of the female musicians shown in a kneeling position, dressed in a tunic with long draped sleeves and tied at the chest with a sash trailing down the front over a long, full, pleated skirt, all picked out in red and bright cornflower blue, the hair drawn up in a double knot above delicately featured faces, one playing the qin, one blowing into a mouth-organ (pai xiao), one playing a flute, another playing a harp-like instrument (konghu), the last with her hands folded into her sleeves, probably a singer; the dancers similarly attired and coiffed, captured in mid-sway with head inclined to the right, right knee bent forward and arms outstretched with the sleeves falling in flat folds to mid-ankle, the faces with seductive expressions
Musicians all approximately 4¼in. (10.8cm.) high; dancers 7in. (17.8cm.) high (7)

Lot Essay

There appears to be no other published group of Northern Wei dancers and musicians of such outstanding quality and forming such a cohesive group

For a related but less well-preserved group of musicians and dancers, and with different coiffure, refer to the article in Kaogu, 1993, no. 5, pp. 414-425, "Henan Yanshi liangzuo Beiweimu fajue jianbao" (A Preliminary Report on the Excavation of Two Northen Wei Tombs at Yanshi, Henan). Among the pieces excavated from the tomb of Liang Hua, dated 526, are three dancers, all of different types and in different positions, and seven musicians, of which one of comparable height to the present figures holding a pipa, and wearing a sloping cap, has survived reasonably intact (p. 418, fig. 5, no. 5 and pl. 4, no. 4). Refer, also, to Kaogu, 1973, no. 4, pp. 218-224 and 243, "Luoyang Beiwei Yuan Shao Mu" (The Northern Wei Tomb of Yuan Shao at Luoyang), which discusses the excavation of some seated musicians, probably male, illustrated pl. 11, nos. 2-4

The figures in the present group are also unsual in the double-knotted hairstyle which is unlike most other published examples of Northern Wei entertainers. It is possible that the style is an indication of the relative youth of the figures. Compare the Northern Wei figural group, and one of two musicians from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, sold in these rooms, December 1, 1994, lots 140 and 141

The results of Oxford thermoluminescence test nos. 766y51 and 766y53 are consistent with the dating of this lot