A SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURE OF AN EQUESTRIENNE

Details

A SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURE OF AN EQUESTRIENNE
TANG DYNASTY

The female rider depicted with hands held high as if pulling on reins, wearing a pale green-glazed robe with sleeve linings and cuffs of the sleeves of the under-garment in dark ochre, seated astride a horse covered in a yellowish-ochre glaze, with straw-glazed muzzle, the saddle blanket splash-glazed in the same color scheme and the unglazed saddle showing traces of black pigment, some restoration--14 3/4 in. (37.5cm.) high

Lot Essay

Compare the slightly larger equestrian figure from the Morse Collection included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition, Spirit and Ritual, 1982, Catalogue no. 37, with a different rider but a mount with long chestnut mane and boldly-splashed glaze; also the slightly larger figure of a trumpeter excavated in Luoyang, with the same robes and small hat, riding a piebald horse but with a painted saddlecloth, illustrated by Qin Tingyu, Zhongguo Gudai Taoci Yishu, pl. 55, and another figure from the same group in the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated in Three-Colour Glaze Pottery of the Tang Dynasty, vol. I, pl. 34

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 566z80 is consistent with the dating of this lot