A RARE GREEN-GLAZED RED POTTERY FIGURE OF A BACTRIAN CAMEL

ANOTHER PROPERTY

Details

A RARE GREEN-GLAZED RED POTTERY FIGURE OF A BACTRIAN CAMEL
SUI DYNASTY

Well modeled standing foursquare on an unglazed rectangular base, with mouth open showing the teeth and red-painted tongue, pierced through the nostrils, the underside of the neck, top of the head, humps and upper portion of the fore legs roughly textured and left unglazed to suggest thick hair, burdened with a bulging pack set between twisted lengths of cloth glazed in dark olive green, with a pleated cloth and projecting panniers beneath, all atop an oval blanket hung on each side in front with a flask, the whole bound to the olive and green-glazed body with a buckled strap continuing under the full belly and another strap under the tail, traces of black pigment, glaze somewhat degraded, restoration--15 3/8 in. (39cm.) high

Lot Essay

A very similar pottery camel, excavated in Luoyang, Henan province, is in the possession of the Commission for the Preservation of Cultural Monuments, Luoyang, and illustrated in Ancient Relics of China, Beijing, 1962, no. 167

This camel also closely resembles one in the Shanghai Museum. The packs and the twisted fabric slung over the top of the saddle, and the flasks hanging at the front are virtually identical. See Shanghai Museum--Chugoku bi no meiho, vol. 2, 1991, p. 61, fig. 64. A camel of similar type with amber glaze was sold in these rooms June 1, 1990, lot no. 143

Other related figures with riders are in the Royal Ontario Museum, illustrated by Margaret Medley, T'ang Pottery and Porcelain, pl. 9, and one illustrated in Mayuyama, Seventy Years, vol. I, col. pl. 1, has a man and a monkey perched atop the bulging pack