Page 188 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York
P. 188
1473 Music and dance were important elements of court ritual during the Han
dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), and this elegant fgure in her tight-ftting,
A RARE LARGE PAINTED GREY POTTERY FIGURE OF A wraparound robes (shen-i) represents a ‘long-sleeve’ dancer. A fgure of
FEMALE DANCER this type, which has one long sleeve fung over her shoulder and the other
WESTERN HAN DYNASTY (206 BC-AD 220) pendent at her side, in the Weber Collection, The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, is illustrated by D. P. Leidy, How to Read Chinese Ceramics, The
The dancer wears long, tightly wrapped, layered robes that Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2015, no. 3, where Leidy includes a
accentuate the slender profle of her curved body as she bends poem that refers to these dancers:
forward in a moment of the dance. The robes fare at the base
exposing one shoe in front and are hiked up in the back in a “And they waved their long, dangling sleeves,
graceful arch, while the empty ends of the full sleeves are fung
outwards in sharp angles. Her face is modeled with strong, intent With a curvaceous, cultivated bearing,
features, and her hair is parted in the middle and combed back in
a looped knot. There are remains of white, pink, red and black Their lovely dresses futtered like fowers in the wind.
pigment.
There eyes cast darting glances,
19√ in. (50.5 cm.) high, lucite stand
One look could overthrow a city.”
$30,000-50,000
Another dancer of this type is illustrated by R. D. Jacobsen, Appreciating
PROVENANCE China: Gifts from Ruth and Bruce Dayton, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts,
2002, pp. 144-45, no. 76. The sleeves of this dancer are shown dangling
Sotheby’s New York, 31 May-1 June 1994, lot 234. from her raised hands which are held in front of her body. See, also, the four
related dancers included in the Eskenazi exhibition, Early Chinese art: 8th
century BC - 9th century AD, London, 6 June - 8 July 1995, nos. 33 and 35
to 37. The empty ends of the sleeves are depicted as fat like those of the
present fgure.
The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 666z40 is consistent with
the dating of this lot.
西漢 彩繪陶女舞俑
(reverse)
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