Page 207 - Christies Fine Chinese Works of Art March 2016 New York

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A VERY RARE PAINTED POTTERY FIGURE OF A FEMALE MUSICIAN
EARLY TANG DYNASTY, 7TH CENTURY

The elegant fgure shown standing with her back swayed and hands held forward
in front of her waist wears a short, close-ftting jacket with stiff, rolled collar and
layered sleeves that project at the shoulders over an undergarment with long,
pendent double-sleeves and long skirt that falls to the tops of the elaborate ‘cloud’
slippers and fares out in back. Her oval face is modeled and detailed with delicate
features, and her hair is parted in the middle and drawn back on the sides over
stiff, angular projections and also up into a bifurcated topknot. There are traces of
red and black pigment and white slip. There are two labels affxed to the back of
the fgure which read ‘Mr. Clark’ and ‘Loo & Cie.’

13√ in. (35.3 cm.) high

$30,000-50,000

PROVENANCE

The Schloss Collection, New York.
Chinese Ceramic Sculpture from the Collection of Lillian Schloss; Sotheby’s New
York, 9 December 1987, lot 2.

LITERATURE

Joan M. Hartman, ‘Chinese Tomb Sculpture in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs.
Ezekiel Schloss’, Oriental Art, Vol. 4, Winter 1969, p. 291, pl. 24.
Ezekiel Schloss, Ancient Chinese Ceramic Sculpture from Han to T’ang, 2 vols.,
Stamford, Connecticut, 1977, vol. II, pl. 122, vol. I, pp. 230-31.

Figures of this type have in the past been referred to as princesses, court ladies and
attendants, but they are now thought to represent musicians or musician/dancers. A
related fgure in The Metropolitan Museum of Art is illustrated and discussed by Denise
Leidy in How to Read Chinese Ceramics, New York, 2015, pp. 31-34, no. 5. The author refers
to the fgure as a musician, based on the position of her hands, and what is held in the
hands, which may be a type of clapper, such as the paiban. As with the present fgure and
others like it, the hands are held in a specifc position in front of the waist. The costume of
all of the fgures is a tight-ftting bodice with stif collar, low neckline, fared shoulders and
long sleeves worn over a long skirt that falls to the tops of ‘cloud’ shoes. The coifure does
difer on the various fgures, with the Metropolitan Museum fgure having a tall layered
topknot, while the present fgure has a bifurcated topknot similar to that seen on two other
fgures with similar facial features, and a similar plain skirt, one in the Musée

Guimet illustrated by J.-P. Desroches in Compagnons d’éternité, Paris, 1997, p. 173, where
it is dated late 7th-early 8th century, the other illustrated by R. Krahl, Sammlung Julius
Eberhardt: Fruhe chinesische Kunst, 1999, pp. 222-23, no. 229. The same facial features
can also be seen on two fgures which wear diferently modeled costumes that includes
a tapering panel edged in tapering ribbons that overlays the skirt, and have an elaborate
‘double ring’ hair style, one illustrated in The Tsui Museum of Art; Chinese Ceramics I, Hong
Kong, 1993, pl. 106, the other by d’Argencé in Chinese Ceramics in the Avery Brundage
Collection, San Francisco, 1967, pl. XXII (A).

Similar fgures with the diferently modeled costume include one in the British Museum,
which also has the hair in a bifurcated topknot, illustrated by W. Watson in Tang and Liao
Ceramics, New York, 1984, p. 190. pl. 208, where it is described as a dancer wearing a
rainbow cloak and a feather gown. Another fgure of this type, with a diferent coifure of
two large open loops extending back from the bifurcated topknot was unearthed in 1985
at Guo village, Zaoyuanxiang, Changwu county, Shaanxi province, and is illustrated in the
exhibition catalogue, The Glory of the Court: Tang Dynasty Empress Wu and Her Times,
Japan, 1998, p. 91, no. 49. Two other fgures of this type are illustrated by H. Trubner in the
exhibition catalogue, The Arts of the T’ang Dynasty, 8 January - 17 February 1957, nos. 153
and 154, from the collections of Claudette Colbert and The Albright Art Gallery, Bufalo,
New York, respectively. The Colbert fgure, no. 153, with its ‘spoked double ring’ coifure
is very similar to a fgure in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Leon Black included in the
exhibition, Crosscurrents: Masterpieces of East Asian Art from New York Private Collections,
Japan Society, New York, 1999, no. 21.

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 466h95 is consistent with the dating of
this lot.

唐初 彩繪陶女樂伎俑

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