TANG DYNASTY (AD 618-907)

The Tang dynasty marked a time when China engaged widely with countries throughout East, Southeast, and South Asia, facilitated by the development of the Silk Routes. Pottery figures of grooms, such as the present example, offer a fascinating view of the foreigners that were present in Chang’an in Tang times. It was fashionable in the seventh and eighth centuries to employ foreign grooms, and many pottery figures of camels are accompanied by foreign grooms.

The present figure of a groom, with wide beard that frames the face, depicts the figure in the action of pulling on the reins of a horse or camel. The jacket is decorated in sancai glazes but also includes the use of a cobalt blue glaze on the sleeves and the long jacket that extends down the back. Most extraordinary is the depiction of the trousers made from leopard skin, painted in pigments on the unglazed pottery, giving us a glimpse of the exotic attire worn by foreign visitors at the time. Another rare painted figure of a foreign groom with ‘leopard-skin’ trousers is in the Qingcheng Museum and illustrated by A. Betrand and Huei-chung Tsao in “Tang China: A Cosmopolitan Dynasty,” Orientations, Hong Kong, Vol. 56, no. 1, January/February 2025, p. 18, no. 10.

The result of Oxford Authentication Ltd. thermoluminescence test no. C102w58 is consistent with the dating of this lot.