Lot 99
99
A MASSIVE BUFF POTTERY FIGURE OF A CAMEL AND RIDER, the camel standing four-square atop a rectangular platform, with arched neck supporting the head tilted upward with mouth open wide exposing curled tongue and teeth, below flaring nostrils and rounded eyes covered by heavy lids, the rider seated atop a saddle-cloth wearing a long coat, high boots, and a pointed cap, his Caucaso-Iranian face with distinguished features, the hands held up as if holding reins, the mane, front of neck, upper part of the humps, and upper legs textured to simulate tufted hair, and with extensive traces remaining of red, amber and black pigment, the details picked out in gold leaf (breaks re-stuck),

Details
A MASSIVE BUFF POTTERY FIGURE OF A CAMEL AND RIDER, the camel standing four-square atop a rectangular platform, with arched neck supporting the head tilted upward with mouth open wide exposing curled tongue and teeth, below flaring nostrils and rounded eyes covered by heavy lids, the rider seated atop a saddle-cloth wearing a long coat, high boots, and a pointed cap, his Caucaso-Iranian face with distinguished features, the hands held up as if holding reins, the mane, front of neck, upper part of the humps, and upper legs textured to simulate tufted hair, and with extensive traces remaining of red, amber and black pigment, the details picked out in gold leaf (breaks re-stuck),

Tang Dynasty
79cm. high

Lot Essay

A camel with similar foreign rider, and a painted saddle-cloth, is illustrated in Sui To no Bijutsu, pl.182; another rider of this type can also be seen on an unglazed recumbent camel excavated in Luoyang, with incised lines indicating the fur on the humps, illustrated by Qin Tingyu, Zhongguo gudai Taosu Yishu, pl.26; see also Sirén, Kinas Konst under Tre Artusenden, vol.II, fig.154 for a comparable figure.

It was Ezekiel Schloss who precisely identified the ethnic type of the rider, though the non-Chinese facial features had been long understood; see Schloss, Ceramic Sculpture, vol.II, pl.104, and col. pl.XI, for a glazed groom described as of Caucaso-Iranian type, from Northeastern Iran, wearing a 'tall felt hat worn much earlier by the Saka-Scythians and also by many nomadic peoples throughout Central Asia', a coat of 'typical Persian style with slits in the sides for convenient riding' and tight-fitting boots

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