Page 81 - 2019 September 13th Christie's New York Important Chinese Works of Art

This impressively large and powerfully modelled horse, with its well- high); the fgure illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, Chinese Art from The
preserved sancai glaze, captures the spirit and power of this celebrated Collection of James W. and Marilynn Alsdof, The Arts Club of Chicago, 21
animal and reveals the technical accomplishment and stylistic maturity September – 13 November 1970, c21 (22 Ω in. high); and the fgure illustrated
of Chinese ceramic sculpture at the peak of the Tang dynasty. The most by E. Schloss in Ancient Chinese Ceramic Sculpture, Stamford, Connecticut,
magnifcent horses, immortalized in Chinese literature and the visual arts, 1977, vol. II, col. pl. V (26 Ω in. high). All of these fgures feature amber or
were the Ferghana horses introduced into central China from the West brown-glazed bodies and cream-glazed muzzles, manes and forelocks. Like
during the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). These horses were known the current fgure, the Lilly and Alsdorf horses each have a saddle covered
for their speed, power and stamina, and were sometimes referred to as with a cloth pulled into pleats on either side, which is set on a blanket draped
‘thousand li horses’, after the belief that they were able to cover a thousand li over the horse’s back. The horse illustrated by Schloss has green-glazed
in a single day. hooves like the present fgure, but is draped over its back with a green-glazed
blanket richly textured to simulate fur.
Large sancai-glazed pottery horses featuring similar elaborate trappings, in
particular this combination of cream-colored tassels on the chest and foliate The foliate plaques hung from the straps on the rump are of a type that has
medallions on the rump, include the fgure in the Indianapolis Museum of been labeled ‘hazel-leaf’ or ‘apricot-leaf’. For actual examples of similar gilt-
Art, illustrated by Y. Mino and J. Robinson in Beauty and Tranquility: The bronze ornaments from the tomb of Princess Yongtai, buried in AD 706, see
Eli Lilly Collection of Chinese Art, Indianapolis, 1983, p.174-75, pl. 61 (26 in. Y. Mino and J. Robinson, op. cit., p. 174, pl. 61, fg. E.

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