LATE EASTERN HAN-SIX DYNASTIES PERIOD (3RD-4TH CENTURY AD)

This unusually large figure of a rhinoceros-like beast closely resembles one from a Western Jin dynasty (AD 265-317) tomb in Zhengzhou, Henan province, illustrated in Kaogu Tongxun, 1957:1, no. 1, pl. XIV:4. A similarly large, but slightly smaller (43.8 cm.), pottery figure of a tricorn in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, is illustrated by S. G. Valenstein in A Handbook of Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1975, p. 57, no. 50.

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. C115n72 is consistent with the dating of this lot.