J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Ancient Chinese Tomb Sculpture
March 22 - April 10, 2004
18.
A PAINTED AND GILDED WOOD FIGURE OF A COURT ATTENDANT
Tang Dynasty, A.D. 7th Century
shown standing quietly with hands clasped together at the waist, wearing a long, belted tunic with low collar, decorated with a wide panel of gilding running from the neck to the hem, and with wide gilt cuffs on the close-fitted long sleeves, the slash-cut vents below the knees also with gilt borders on either side, the remainder of the garment painted in bright vermillion red and the belt visible in back painted in black, the long pantaloons hanging to the shoe-tops, showing only traces of the pale beige underlayer of pigment, the face with small feminine features and red-painted lips, the hair pulled up into a high topknot and painted black, with a gilded hair ornament at the front.
Height 18 1⁄2 inches (47 cm)
Several fragments of painted wood tomb figures including the heads of male and female figures in court dress, the head of a Central Asian, the legs of horses, and the head and torso of a lokapala, all discovered in 1985 in Tang dynasty tombs at Yanchi in Ningxia province, northwestern China, are illustrated in an excavation report in Wenwu, 1988, No. 9, pp. 43-56.
A pair of wood figures of female attendants in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art – Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, exhibited at the Portland Art Museum in 1976, are illustrated by Donald Jenkins in the catalogue entitled Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, Portland Art Museum, 1976, pp. 28-29, no. 8, dated to the Sui dynasty, circa A.D. 600.
A simple carved wood figure of a courtesan of the so-called ‘fat lady’ type, with traces of painted decoration in black and colors, excavated from a Tang site in Qinghai is illustrated in A Selection of the Treasure of Archeological Finds of the People’s Republic of China 1976-1984, Beijing, 1987, no. 376.
Compare also the three Tang dynasty painted wood figures shown in the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts and illustrated in the catalogue entitled Ancient Chinese Sculptural Treasures: Carvings in Wood, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, 1998, cat. nos. 38-40.
