J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Ancient Chinese Sculpture: Recent Acquisitions
March 14 - April 5, 2014
10.
A SANCAI- AND BLUE-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURE OF A COURTESAN
Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907)
shown standing with her hands clasped beneath the pleated folds of her dappled chestnut- and green-glazed shawl draped over her shoulders and hanging down the front of her long robes covered with blue, green, chestnut and cream colored glazes splashed freely on the front and back and falling in vertical stripes to the base, with the upturned toes of her shoes protruding at the hem of her skirt, her softly rounded face with delicately modelled features accentuated with red and black pigment over white slip on the unglazed clay, her hair drawn up and gathered in an elaborate double topknot, showing remains of original black pigment, with traces of encrusted earth from burial.
Height 15 1⁄8 inches (38.5 cm)
Provenance
J. J. Lally & Co., Chinese Archaic Bronzes, Sculpture and Works of Art, New York, 1992, no. 20
Several similarly modelled Tang sancai-glazed figures of court ladies are known in museum collections, but examples decorated with blue glaze, which was the most highly prized glaze color in the Tang period, are rare. A similar Tang dynasty tomb figure of a courtesan from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections was included in The Arts of Ancient China exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and illustrated in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, No. 2, 1973/1974, fig. 66.
Compare also the similar Tang dynasty pottery figure of a courtesan shown standing in the same pose with hands clasped beneath her long shawl, her hair swept up onto a wing-shaped coif, in the Musée Guimet, from the Collection of Michel Calmann, illustrated by Desroches in Chine: des chevaux et des hommes, Paris, 1995, pp. 158-159, no. 61.
唐 三彩女陶俑 高 38.5 厘米
