Page 83 - Chinese pottery and porcelain : an account of the potter's art in China from primitive times to the present day

The T'ang Dynasty, 618-906 a.d. 27

quadrupeds with legs like a bull, human heads with large ears and
a single horn which are called by the Chinese fu kuai or " earth-
spirits." Finally, in addition to man and super-man, the animal
world was represented by two saddled horses, two dromedaries,
two pigs, two sheep, a beautifully modelled dog, and a goose. What
more could a man desire in the underworld ? All these figures

are of the usual white plaster-like body, with the pale, straw-coloured
or greenish glazes which long burial has dissolved into iridescence

where it has not actually caused it to flake away. Some of them
stand on flat, plain bases ; others on their own feet and robes. The

latter kind are all hollow beneath, and the quadrupeds have a large

cavity under the belly, a feature common to the T'ang and Han

animals, and one which I have noticed on bronzes of the same periods.
Needless to add, these figures were made in moulds, the seams of
which are still visible.^

A few examples of the tomb figures are illustrated in the adjoin-

ing plates. The tall, slender figure on Plate 7, Fig. 1, seems to re-
present a lady of distinction. The elaborate head-dress and costume,
the necklace and pendant and the belt are all carefully modelled ; and
the Elizabethan appearance of the collar is curious and interesting.
The ware is soft and white like pipeclay, though still caked with
the reddish loess clay from which it was exhumed. The style of

this figure with its slender proportions is analogous to that of the

graceful stone sculptures of the Northern Wei period. The genial
monster in white clay and splashed green and yellow glazes

illustrated on Plate 7 is one of the many sphinx-like creatures

found in the tombs over which they were supposed to exercise a

beneficial influence. Sometimes they have human heads on the
bull body, and they are then described as Vu kuai or earth-spirits.
In the present example we have a form which strongly resembles

certain Persian or Sassanian monsters in bronze ; and it is highly
probable that the idea of this creature came from a western Asiatic

source.

Plate 5 shows a fine example of a horse in coloured glazes, a

fierce figure in warrior's guise, who is, no doubt, one of the Lokapalas

^ Laufer ( Jade, p. 247) sounds a note of warning about the reconstruction of many
of the T'ang figures. They -were very frequently broken in the course of excavation,
and when a head was missing its place was commonly supplied from another find.

Another and more serious warning is given by F. Perzynski in the Ostasialischer Zeit-
schrifl, January to April, 1914, p. 464, in an article describing forgeries of coloured
T'ang figures, and vases and ewers with mottled green and yellow glazes, in Honan Fu.