TANG/LIAO DYNASTY, 10TH-11TH CENTURY

Small sancai figural armrests or stands of this type appear to be fairly rare. A related example, dated to the Liao dynasty and described as an earthenware tray supported on the back of a lion, formerly in the H. J. Oppenheim Collection and now in The British Museum, London, is illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, Tokyo, 1982, vol. 5, pl. 49. Unlike the Oppenheim example the present lot is modeled without a shaped base on which the animal crouches and supports a slab-like platform rather than a shallow tray with rounded sides.