Page 11 - Chinese Works of Art Chritie's Mar. 22-23 2018
P. 11
This group of musicians illustrates the popularity not only of foreign dress
during the Tang period, but of the taste for the music and instruments of
Central Asia, particularly Sogdiana and Kucha, said to have been introduced
to the court by the Turkic wife of Emperor Wudi (r. 561-78). Traditional
Chinese thought held that music infuences the harmony of the universe,
and was thus more meaningful than mere entertainment. A group of three
related, kneeling pottery fgures of female musicians, with foreign hair styles,
is illustrated by J. Baker in Seeking Immortality: Chinese Tomb Sculpture from
the Schloss Collection, Santa Ana, 1996, p. 30.
唐 彩繪陶樂伎俑一組六件
9 9