A RARE PAIR OF MAGNIFICENT LARGE SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURES OF BACTRIAN CAMELS
A RARE PAIR OF MAGNIFICENT LARGE SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURES OF BACTRIAN CAMELS

TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

Details
A RARE PAIR OF MAGNIFICENT LARGE SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURES OF BACTRIAN CAMELS
TANG DYNASTY (618-907)
Each differently detailed and shown standing on a rectangular base, one straw glazed with amber glaze splashed on the sides and used to highlight the unusual roughly textured hair outlining the cheeks, as well as the finely scored hair on the top of the head and humps, on the rougher hair on the legs, and on the tail flicked up and to the side, the fitted splash-glazed blanket with green-glazed fringe; the other amber and straw-glazed camel with head raised and mouth open in a bray, its humps flopped to either side and its back laden with a splash-glazed pack molded with large masks, as well as various trade goods and provisions including a twisted skein, a strip of fabric and haunches of meat and a ewer, the latter applied to the packboards
33¼ and 32 in. high (85.1 and 81.3 cm.) high (2)

Lot Essay

The Bactrian camel was not indigenous to China, but was imported by the tens of thousands from the states of the Tarim Basin, eastern Turkestan and Mongolia. The Tang state created a special office to oversee the imperial camel herds, which were brought into service for transport and for special military courier missions to the northern frontier. The camel was also employed by the court and merchants, making these animals 'ships of the desert' linking China commercially and culturally to the cities and trade routes of Central Asia, Persia and the Near East.

The burial practice of including models of camels laden with goods developed in the sixth century, and served to exemplify the prestige and commerical influence of the deceased. The large size, exquisite modelling and glaze of the present pair suggest that they would have come from the tomb of a high-ranking personage. Compare this pair with a camel excavated in 1971, now in the Luoyang Museum and illustrated in Da Sancai, Sancai from Luoyang Museum and the Liaoning Provincial Museum, 1989, no. 8 (b). See also two examples from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology, illustrated by E. R. Knauer, The Camel's Load in Life and Death, 1998, pp. 96-8, pl. 67; and a large example in the collection of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco illustrated by d'Argence (ed.), Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1974, p. 206, no. 101.

The results of Oxford Authentication Ltd. test nos. C205f77 and C205f76 are consistent with the dating of this lot.

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