Coco Li
Cataloguer / Sale Coordinator, Chinese Works of Art
Lot 45
TWO RARE SANCAI-GLAZED EQUESTRIAN FIGURES Tang Dynasty
14 December 2023, 17:00 EST
New YorkSold for US$14,080 inc. premium
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Michael Hughes
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I-Hsuan Chen
Senior Specialist
TWO RARE SANCAI-GLAZED EQUESTRIAN FIGURES
Tang Dynasty
Depicting male and female riders, the first wearing wide-shouldered blue riding coat and trousers and ochre-glazed boots and stirrups, the rider's hands covered by voluminous sleeves and held forward, the front flap neatly outlined off-center and with a simple crew neck below the unglazed head, the hair tied in a forward-facing bun under a tied cap, the sancai-glazed horse standing four-square on an unglazed rectangular base, with head held forward and turning slightly to it's (real) left, the female rider wearing a blue and straw-glazed riding coat and trousers with lightly molded stirrups, her ochre and straw-glazed horse standing four-square on an unglazed rectangular base with head looking downward and to it's (real) left.
14 3/4in (37.5cm) and 14in (35.5cm) high (2).
Depicting male and female riders, the first wearing wide-shouldered blue riding coat and trousers and ochre-glazed boots and stirrups, the rider's hands covered by voluminous sleeves and held forward, the front flap neatly outlined off-center and with a simple crew neck below the unglazed head, the hair tied in a forward-facing bun under a tied cap, the sancai-glazed horse standing four-square on an unglazed rectangular base, with head held forward and turning slightly to it's (real) left, the female rider wearing a blue and straw-glazed riding coat and trousers with lightly molded stirrups, her ochre and straw-glazed horse standing four-square on an unglazed rectangular base with head looking downward and to it's (real) left.
14 3/4in (37.5cm) and 14in (35.5cm) high (2).
Footnotes
唐 三彩陶男女騎馬俑兩件
Compare the similarly modeled painted pottery equestrian figures unearthed from the Tang cemetery in Xingyuan village, Yanshi city, Henan province, illustrated in the excavation report The Tang Tombs in Yanshi Xingyuan, Beijing, 2001, pl. 7-1-4.
For a pair riding straw-glazed horses, see Christie's New York, 25 March 2022, from the Collection of Mr. And Mrs. McLendon, lot 1066; see also a larger, blue-glazed rider on an amber horse sold at Christie's New York, 13 September 2019, lot 1069.
For another larger blue-glazed rider on a straw-glazed horse, see Sotheby's New York, Important Chinese Art, 13 September 2016, lot 151 and previously sold at Sotheby's New York, 3rd December 1986, lot 110 from the Collection of Earl and Irene Morse and also illustrated in the exhibition catalog A Thousand Years of Chinese Tomb Sculpture at the Epcot Center, Orlando, 1983, no. 28.
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