Page 203 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

These two fgures are similar to a group of ten seated female court
musicians in the Shoso-in, Japan, illustrated by Ryoichi Hayashi in The
Silk Road and the Shoso-in, New York/Tokyo, 1975, p. 96, fg. 103. Three
similar painted pottery fgures of seated female court musicians illustrated
by J. Baker in Appeasing the Spirits: Sui and Tang Dynasty Tomb Sculpture
from the Schloss Collection, Hofstra Museum, Hofstra University, 1993, p.
18, no. 9, are described as wearing Kuchean fashions, and representing the
Kuchean modes of music and entertainment that were popular during the
Sui and early Tang periods. The same costume and Kuchean hair style can
also be seen on a group of standing fgures illustrated p. 17, nos. 6 and 7. In
discussing a group of nine similarly attired and coifed standing fgures of
female musicians illustrated in China: A History in Art, New York, 1979, p. 132
(top), the authors, B. Smith and Wango Weng, note that female musicians
from Chinese Turkestan played for the court, and that “musicians from
Kucha in Central Asia probably exerted the most infuence” at court.
The results of Oxford thermoluminescence test nos. 466h92 and 466h93 are
consistent with the dating of this lot.
隋/唐初 彩繪陶女樂伎俑一對

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