Unusual Pottery Saddled Horse

Unusual Pottery Saddled Horse

Tang Dynasty (618-907 A.D.)

Height 50 cm., Length 47 cm

A Large Painted Pottery Figure of a Saddled Horse

Unusual Pottery Saddled Horse, finely modelled with a powerful body standing foursquare and with an air of tense alertness, with open mouth, picked ears and parted forelock. The crisply molded saddle set atop a blanket.

The Tang nobility were legendary for their love of horses, so much so that the court passed a law in 667 that allowed only members of the elite to ride.

Noble families might own literally thousands of horses, with different types for use in the cavalry, for hunting and polo. The present figure is particularly rare for its size.

A similar large horse, though modelled standing foursquare rather then striding, is illustrated in Jacques Barrère, Art d’Exreme Orient, Paris, 1991, pp. 50-51; compare also, the horse sold in Christie’s New York, 29 March 2006, lot 376