A PAINTED POTTERY FIGURE OF A STRIDING HORSE

NORTHERN QI DYNASTY (550-577)

Details

A PAINTED POTTERY FIGURE OF A STRIDING HORSE
NORTHERN QI DYNASTY (550-577)
Finely modeled striding on a trapezoidal base, the head adorned with a tasseled cloth, tall plume and studded bridle, from which hangs a pointed, oval-shaped ornament, the saddle covered with a long cloth knotted at the ends above the flared mud guards, the trappings around the chest and rump adorned with elaborate tassels and straps embellished with florets and bosses
14½ in. (36.8 cm.) long

Provenance

Acquired in the 1990s.

Lot Essay

This pottery horse is similar stylistically to an example unearthed in Cixian, Hebei province in 1979 from the tomb of an Eastern Wei princess of the Ruru nationality; see Wenwu, 1984:4, pl. 5, fig. 2, and p. 6, fig. 7, no. 3, for a line drawing of the horse. Compare, also, two similar Eastern Wei horses, one in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University, illustrated by V. Bower and R. Mowry, From Court to Caravan: Chinese Tomb Sculptures from the Collection of Anthony M. Solomon, Cambridge, 2002, p. 92, no. 19; and another included in the exhibition, Early Dynastic China: Works of Art from Shang to Song, J.J. Lally & Co., New York, 26 March - 26 April 1996, no. 5.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. C107x39 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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