TANG DYNASTY

Details

A Rare Pair of Small Blue and Sancai-Glazed Pottery Equestrian Figures
Tang Dynasty
Each shown seated atop a well-proportioned horse with head turned to the left and caparisoned in medallion-hung trappings, the female rider wearing a long dress with tight-fitting sleeves, her hair dressed in looped topknots, the male rider with hands positioned to hold the reins, wearing a blue robe and a falconer's hat with foliate rim, the male rider glazed in blue, amber and cream, the female rider in the same palette plus green glaze on the trappings
12¾ and 12½in. (32.4 and 31.7cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

Equestrian figures of this unusual small size, with such lavish combination of blue and sancai glazes and such elaborate trappings are unusually refined in thier modeling. A slightly smaller blue and sancai-glazed example (27.5cm. high) with a Tartar seated astride a similar elaborately caparisoned horse was included in the Eskenazi exhibition, Twenty-five years, London, 1985, no. 24. Compare, also, the painted grey pottery figure of an equestrian falconer, whose full face and proud expression bear a close resemblance to that of the present lot, illustrated in Zhongguo taoci minpin zhan (An Exhibition of Great Examples of Chinese Ceramics: Masterpieces of Old Chinese Ceramics from the Ataka Collection), Tokyo, 1975.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. C100u64 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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