Page 68 - September 20 2021 Chinese Works of Art Bonhams NYC

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
160
AN OCHRE-PAINTED GRAY POTTERY HORSE AND RIDER For another example of this rare model but depicting a female rider,
Early Tang dynasty See Christie’s, Los Angeles, Treasures of the Tang, 4 December 1998,
The well-modelled sturdy horse standing foursquare with head raised, lot 17, formerly in the Ezekiel Schloss Collection.
upright ears, deeply-cut lidded eyes, flaring nostrils and slightly open
mouth, the gray body is painted in an ochre pigment that veers to Three others are published, see Suzanne Valenstein, The Herzman
orange in places and the saddle area is left un-decorated, the male Collection of Chinese Ceramics, Hong Kong, 1992, p. 21, fig. 11; He
rider and saddle are separately modelled in one free-standing piece Li, Chinese Ceramics, New York, 1996, p. 100, fig. 184 and listed as
that figs snuggly on the horses body, he sits upright with one hand from Shaanxi or Henan; and the Rijksmuseum, Bulletin, Amsterdam,
held in the motion of holding a rein, he wears simple garments, his 1966, p. 24, pl. 4, no.1.
face so lifelike he appears to stare forward seemingly absorbed in
his own thoughts, the figure is painted with a thin white pigment with For a slightly larger free-standing gray pottery figure of a man seated
traces of red and black highlights. on a saddle, presumably intended for a horse similar to ours and now
17 1/2in (44.5cm) high separated, see J.J. Lally & Co., Oriental Art, Chinese Archaic Bronzes,
Sculpture and Works of Art,, June 1992, New York, 1994, no. 17. It
$12,000 - 18,000 is possible that these two early and extremely rare sculptures where
modelled in the same workshop.
唐早期 彩繪騎馬陶俑
For another larger example of a lady equestrian, possibly modelled
Provenance: in one piece, rather than separately, see Sotheby’s, Hong Kong,
Christie’s, New York, Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, 27 Important Chinese Ceramics, 31 October 1974, lot 110, where it
November 1991, lot 300 is dated to the Wei dynasty rather than to early in the Tang. Three
others, illustrated in Collection of Chinese and Other Far Eastern Art,
來源: Assembled by Yamanaka & Company, Inc., Alien Property Custodian
佳士得紐約，1991年11月27日，拍品編號300 of the United States of America, New York, 1943, no. 469, 477 and
479, are also dated to the Wei dynasty.
The modelling of the horse and especially its delicate and realistic
head, as well as the position in which its head is held, is similar to that The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 566u65 is
of the horse in a glazed equestrian group excavated in 1971 from the consistent with the dating of this lot.
tomb of Prince Yide in Qian County, Shaanxi province, included in the
exhibition The Quest for Eternity, Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
1987, no. 72.

66 | BONHAMS