A GREEN-GLAZED RED POTTERY MODEL OF A MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

Details

A GREEN-GLAZED RED POTTERY MODEL OF A MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
HAN DYNASTY

Modeled as a group of four seated musicians performing atop a rectangular platform raised on four detachable animal-form legs, the central figure seated behind a table, perhaps meant to support a qin, the top and sides of the platform decorated with diaper patterns, all covered with a green glaze degraded in areas to a silvery iridescence (some restoration)
11in. (27.8cm.) long

Lot Essay

It is unusual to find groups of musicians modeled on a platform. A group of painted pottery figures of performers with an audience, also modeled on a platform, but most likely missing its original legs, was unearthed from a tomb in Mt. Wujing, Shandong province, in 1969. This group, dated to the Western Han, is illustrated in Spirit of Han, Ceramics for the After-Life, Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, 1991, Catalogue, p. 63, pl. viii

Compare a green-glazed model of a table, presumably an offering table, larger than the present lot, but with similar detachable hooved legs, illustrated by John C. Ferguson, Survey of Chinese Art, Shanghai, 1940, no. 176a