A RARE PAINTED WOOD FIGURE OF A COURT LADY

Details

A RARE PAINTED WOOD FIGURE OF A COURT LADY
TANG DYNASTY

The slender, elegant figure standing with right arm held across her waist and left arm pendent at the side, wearing a short, long-sleeved jacket with deep U-shaped neckline and painted in red outline with scattered blossoms on a cream ground, her long skirt painted with a pattern of black, waisted rectangles outlined in red and reserved on a pink ground, the oval face carved with delicate features and the hair pulled up into a coiled topknot and painted black
16½in. (42cm.) high, stand

Lot Essay

Closely comparable female figures with similar hairstyle and costume appear in the wall paintings discovered in the tomb of Princess Yongtai at Liangshan near Xian, Shaanxi province, dated 706 A.D. Compare, also, the sancai-glazed ceramic figures of seated ladies from Tang burials at Wangjiafen, on the outskirts of Xian, Terukazu Akiyama et al, Arts of China--Recent Discoveries, Tokyo, 1968, nos. 191, 376 and 378

For other painted wood figures of this type, see Eskenazi, Ancient Chinese sculpture from the Alsdorf collection and others, London, June 12-July 6, 1990, Catalogue, nos. 6-10 and J.J. Lally & Co., Arts of Ancient China, New York, May 31-June 23, 1990, Catalogue, nos. 14-18

Two other wood figures of female attendants wearing long-sleeved robes, but of slightly different type and dated to the Sui dynasty, are in the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, illustrated by Donald Jenkins, Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, Portland Art Museum, 1976, Catalogue, pp. 28 and 29, no. 8

A Tang wood figure of a corpulent lady, decorated with ink and colored pigment on a white slip, excavated in Qinghai, illlustrated in A Selection of the Treasure of Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China 1976-1984, (1987), no. 376

Compare, also, the painted wood figure of a court lady with similar pose and hairstyle, sold in these rooms, December 2, 1989, lot 42