A SANCAI-GLAZED EQUESTRIAN

TANG DYNASTY

Details

A SANCAI-GLAZED EQUESTRIAN
Tang Dynasty
Standing foursquare on a rectangular base with head turned to its left, the horse under a dark amber glaze, the mane swept to one side and glazed a dark brown-black color as are the lower half of the legs and the tail, the figure seated in a green-glazed long-sleeved robe and holding his hands as though to play a flute, the head left in the biscuit and painted with black highlights, the rider with his feet in stirrups and seated on a sancai-mottled saddle cloth
16in. (42cm.) high

Provenance

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, accession no. 58.51.7; deaccessioned post 1965, no. 46223

Lot Essay

The elegant rider in this equestrian group is very similar to one included in the Catalogue of the exhibition, The Arts of China, C.W. Post Gallery, 1977, p. 56, no. 76. Both riders wear the same black-painted court hat, long-sleeved green-glazed robe belted above the waist and black boots. They also have the same delicately painted mustache and goatee. The horses, although similarly modeled, have differences in their manes and saddle cloth. Another very similarly modeled rider and horse with different glaze combinations is illustrated in Gems of China's Cultural Relics, Beijing, 1997, pl. 133.

Compare, also, the similarly robed equestrian figure, very possibly from the same group, with the same painted facial features, but a different court hat, sold at Christie's, New York, 4 June 1987, lot 195; and another in the Inaugural Exhibition, Early Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Eskenazi, 1972, Catalogue, pp. 38-39, no. 17 reported to have been excavated in Loyung in 1948.