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Lot Essay
Compare the set of similarly costumed but smaller figures of entertainers, including six musicians accompanying two corpulent male and female dancing courtiers, illustrated in Shaanxisheng chutu Tang Yong xuanji, Beijing, 1958, pl. 111, pp. 146-149. The six musicians were included in the exhibition, China in Venice, Milan, 1986, nos. 49-54, pp. 149-151.
Another group of the same type of foreign entertainers was included in the exhibition, Sculpture and ornament in early Chinese art, Eskenazi, London, 11 June-13 July 1996, no. 25. Two of the four figures are male dancers similar to those in the present group, their legs and arms positioned as if in a dance, and wearing garments of Central Asian type. Their hair is also drawn up into a bun worn above the forehead. According to E. R. Knauer, The Camel's Load in Life and Death, Zurich, 1998, this type of hairdo was held in place by a net-like device. A possible version in leather was excavated at Astana in the Turfan depression and is illustrated p. 75, fig. 47.
The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 766a98 is consistent with the dating of this lot.
Another group of the same type of foreign entertainers was included in the exhibition, Sculpture and ornament in early Chinese art, Eskenazi, London, 11 June-13 July 1996, no. 25. Two of the four figures are male dancers similar to those in the present group, their legs and arms positioned as if in a dance, and wearing garments of Central Asian type. Their hair is also drawn up into a bun worn above the forehead. According to E. R. Knauer, The Camel's Load in Life and Death, Zurich, 1998, this type of hairdo was held in place by a net-like device. A possible version in leather was excavated at Astana in the Turfan depression and is illustrated p. 75, fig. 47.
The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 766a98 is consistent with the dating of this lot.