J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art / New York City, New York
MenuPast Exhibition
Two Thousand Years of Chinese Sculpture
March 17-29, 2008
18.
A PAINTED AND GILDED WOOD FIGURE OF A COURT LADY
Tang Dynasty, 7th Century
the tall slender young woman shown standing quietly, holding a spherical vessel in both hands at her waist, wearing a red-painted shawl with traces of gilt pattern draped across her shoulders and over her right arm, partially covering her short décolleté long-sleeved jacket with gold-painted cuffs, and with matching bands of gilding at the neck and around the waist over-painted with floral scroll motifs in red and black, her long skirt with scattered traces of red, green and black painted decoration, flaring slightly at the hem, with the upturned toes of her shoes protruding at the front, her face with well-carved simple features set in a serene expression, her hair gathered into a small bun at the top of her head and painted black.
Height 21 1⁄4 inches (54 cm)
A slightly smaller Tang dynasty painted wood figure of a court lady holding a similar vessel is illustrated by Krahl, Chinese Ceramics from the Meiyintang Collection, Vol. Three (I), London, 2006, p. 130, fig. 11.
A pair of wood figures of female attendants in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art – Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, and exhibited at the Portland Art Museum in 1976, are illustrated by Donald Jenkins in the catalogue entitled Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, Portland, 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.
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.
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.
唐 描金彩繪女木俑 高 54 厘米
