A Rare Large Painted Grey Pottery Equestrian Figure

EARLY WESTERN HAN DYNASTY

Details

A Rare Large Painted Grey Pottery Equestrian Figure
Early Western Han Dynasty
The rider well modeled wearing a short tunic and a close-fitting helmet that covers the back of his incised hair and ties beneath his chin, his face painted pink and detailed with a thin black mustache, his hands positioned to rein in his spirited horse, its neck arched and ears laid back, the powerful body adorned with red tassels and streamers issuing from the front and back of the saddle boards protruding from beneath his tunic hem in back
27½in. (69.9cm.) high

Lot Essay

This unusually large model of this type of equestrian figure is similar to three others of slightly smaller size (65cm. high) unearthed in 1965 from a tomb at Yangjiawan, Xianyang City, now in the Shaanxi Historical Museum, and included in the exhibition, Treasure of Ch'ang, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 15 October 1993 - 2 January 1994, no. 2, p. 52. The tomb is an attendant tomb of Changling, the tomb of Emperor Gaozu and consisted of eleven pits. The equestrian figures here were grouped together in square formations. See, also, the similarly modeled large figure (68.5cm.) painted with similar decoration on both horse and rider, but where the horse's head is raised, illustrated in Zhongguo taoci daxi; Gudai taoci daquan (Chinese Ceramics Series; The Ancient Ceramics), Taipei, 1989, p. 247. Another similar figure is illustrated along with a line drawing of the type of saddles with raised cantle and saddle bow on which the present figure sits, Zhongguo gudai bingqi tuji (Ancient Chinese Weapons - A Collection of Pictures), Beijing, 1990, p. 154, figs. 6-96 and 6-97.

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