Page 64 - Sotheby's Imperial Chiense Porcelain Nov 4 2020 London

234
TANG SANCAI - THE SZE YUAN TANG COLLECTION 唐 三彩加藍臥牛
AN EXTREMELY RARE BLUE, STRAW AND
AMBER-GLAZED BUFFALO 來源
TANG DYNASTY 思源堂收藏
naturalistically modelled as a recumbent buffalo resting on
a bent leg and the other stretched out, with its head turned
slightly upwards to the left, the body defined by taut muscles
and a strong curved spine terminating in a tail sweeping over
its rear haunches, covered overall in vibrant blue glaze pooling
to deep indigo tones with straw-glazed highlights, resting on an
amber and blue-glazed base
Width 19.3 cm, 7⅝ in.
The dating of this lot is consistent with the result of a
thermoluminescence test, Oxford authentication Ltd., no.
C111n23.
£ 80,000-120,000

Covered in a brilliant blue glaze, this figure of a buffalo is humble reproductions of valuable items that would serve the
impressive for the naturalistic and sophisticated modelling deceased in the afterlife. In the Tang dynasty, these sculptures
of its body and pose, which capture the inner strength and and vessels became increasingly rich in their colouration
gentle nature of the animal. Stemming from a long tradition of and ornamentation, as they became symbolic of status and
producing ceramic sculptures to be housed in tombs, its fine wealth. Sculptures such as the present were commissioned
modelling and deep blue glaze encapsulates the adventurous by aristocratic and royal families, and were paraded through
and international spirit of the dynasty. the metropolitan centres of north China during funeral
It is a particularly rare example of sancai animal sculpture for processions. Hence the blue glaze of the present piece would
two main reasons: its reclining pose is seldom found among have revealed its owner’s wealth both to the spirits, and to
extant examples of ceramic buffaloes. Traditionally a domestic those participating in the funeral procession.
animal associated with agriculture, figures of buffaloes were While the majority of Tang tomb sculptures show a certain
more commonly made standing and at times harnessed, as level of standardisation, depictions of reclining buffaloes
they were used to draw carts. The reclining pose, on the other are rare, and only a pair of closely related buffaloes, but
hand captures the animal’s bucolic character and evokes the glazed predominantly in green, appears to be known: they
essence of life in the countryside, concepts that became more were included in the Min Chiu Society exhibition In Pursuit
prevalent in the later Song dynasty (960-1279). This figure of Antiquities, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Hong Kong, 1995-
is also rare for its use of cobalt oxide, which at the time was 6, cat. no. 85. See also a reclining sancai-glazed mythical
extremely expensive as it was imported from Central Asia. beast, in the collection of the Tenri Sankokan Museum, Nara,
Very few ceramic sculptures of animals are known covered illustrated in William Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, London,
in cobalt, and its use on this piece attest to the wealth of its 1984, p. 230.
owner. A standing blue-glazed buffalo with a boy on its back was
The Tang dynasty represents one of the richest chapters in the included in the exhibition Tang Sancai Pottery. Selected from
history of ceramic art in China, when potters tested the limits the Collection of Alan And Simon Hartman, The International
of the medium and ceramic wares began to be considered Ceramics Fair and Seminar, London, 1989, cat. no. 15; another
as an art form. When glazed pottery vessels, animals and in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., is published on
objects of daily life first became popular burial furnishings in the Museum’s website: accession no. F1949.26; and a standing
the Han dynasty (206 BC- AD 220), they were conceived as blue-glazed donkey is in the Shaanxi History Museum, Xi’an.

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