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Tang Female Polo Player
Tang Female Polo Player. Very nice old aged patina. Please refer to the photos. Superb Pottery Female Polo Player Astride A Galloping Pony, with TL test
With a massive iron stand, very secure! The iron stand is a better, nicer and securer alternative to the plastic stand!
Our Guarantee: The above item is guarantee to be of the time period and condition as described, has been exported legally and is legal to buy and sell under all international lows to cultural patrimony.
Fired in antiquity. Antique and Genuine item.
Outstanding pottery “mingqi” representing a Superb Pottery Female Polo Player Astride A Galloping Pony
Red earthenware coated with white slip and remains of yellow, pink, dark red, black and red pigment.
Early Tang Dynasty (618-907)
Excellent condition, much of the original pigment remaining.
Height 47 cm. Wide 45 cm., (H; 36,5 cm rider only)
Excavated from the tomb in Qianxian, Shaanxi province.
– Provenance: Very important and old private German collection, Mr. W. R., Wiesbaden collected before 1995.
Rare Female Polo Player, the spirited horse naturalistically and dramatically modelled as in full gallop with all four legs extended and hoofs of the ground. The rider seated firmly in her saddle with feet stretched forward in the stirrups. Her body twisted at the waist to the left and dressed in long yellow tight-fitting costume. With her right arm raised to strike, her softly modelled face detailed in yellow, lilac and red pigment on a white slip beneath the black hair drawn up into a double topknot, much of the original pigment remaining.
This figure is closely related to the well-known group of four female polo players in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, referred to in the Handbook of the Collections, Kansas City, 1959, p. 208; cf. also M. Medley, Tang Pottery and Porcelain, pl. 41, pl. 51; compare further the polo player exhibited at the International Exhibition of Chinese Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1953-6, Catalogue. pl. 2432, p. 223.
– The result of the thermoluminescence test, is consistent with the dating of the item, Tang dynasty (ca. 1170 years old). Sampling in 3 different points
*Tang dynasty tomb figures are pottery figures of people and animals made in the Tang dynasty of China (618–906) as grave goods to be placed in tombs. There was a belief that the figures represented would become available for the service of the deceased in the afterlife.[1] The figures are made of moulded earthenware with colour generally being added, though often not over the whole figure, or in naturalistic places. Where the colouring was in paint it has often not survived, but in many cases it was in sancai (“three-colour”) ceramic glaze, which has generally lasted well.
The figures, called mingqui in Chinese, were most often of servants, soldiers (in male tombs) and attendants such as dancers and musicians, with many no doubt representing courtesans. In burials of people of high rank there may be soldiers and officials as well. The animals are most often horses, but there are surprising numbers of both Bactrian camels and their Central Asian drivers, distinguished by thick beards and hair, and their facial features. The depictions are realistic to a degree unprecedented in Chinese art,[2] and the figures give archaeologists much useful information about life under the Tang.[3] There are also figures of the imaginary monster “earth spirits” and the fearsome human Lokapala (or tian wang), both usually in pairs and acting as tomb guardians to repel attacks by both spirits and humans.[4] Sets of the twelve imaginary beasts of the Chinese Zodiac are also found, usually unglazed.[5]
The figures represent a development of earlier traditions of Chinese tomb figures,[6] and in the Tang elaborate glazed figures are restricted to north China, very largely to the areas around the capitals.[7] They “virtually disappear” from 755 when the highly disruptive An Lushan Rebellion began,[8] which probably affected the kilns in Henan and Hebei making the pieces as well as their elite clientele.[9] A much diminished tradition continued in later dynasties until the Ming. The use of sancai glazing on figures was restricted to the upper classes,[10] and production was controlled by the imperial bureaucracy,[11] but a single burial of a member of the imperial family might contain many hundreds of figures.
