An Unusual Group of Early T'ang Painted Pottery Figures

T'ang Studies 8-9 (1990-91) An Unusual Group of Early T'ang Painted Pottery Figures JAMESJ.LALLY NEW YORK CITY China today is the richest archaeological ground in the world. Chinese burial customs through the centuries were elaborate and varied, and the contents of early Chinese tombs are the most substantial and important evidence now available to provide an understanding of the way Chinese lived in the T'ang and earlier dynasties. The tradition of interring large numbers of burial figures {ming-ch'i %$$) made of painted or glazed pottery was well established more than a thousand years before the T'ang dynasty, but the custom spread and flourished more than ever before in the T'ang period. The most typical and well known pottery tomb figures from the T'ang period are made from pale tan or pinkish-buff colored, or brick-red colored, clay. They may be left unglazed, covered with a translucent yellowish "straw" glaze or glazed in a san-ts'ai H I palette of cream, amber, and green with the occasional addition of blue glaze. The straw-glazed examples and the unglazed figures usually were decorated with cold paint, most often red and black and sometimes other colors, including blues and greens applied over a white ground. The jewelry or dress or trappings often were highlighted in gilt paint or gold leaf. Sometimes a horse's mane and tail were made of real horse hair and stuck in place, and miniature trappings were sometimes made of leather and gilt bronze. In addition to the typical T'ang pottery tomb figures very briefly described above, small groups of Sui and T'ang tomb figures made from dark gray clay have been excavated and have come onto the art market over the years. The color of the clay, the color and types of pigments and glazes, and the modelling style of the various different pottery tomb figures can give an indication of the date and the region of manufacture. As more scientific archaeological work is being done in China, the dating of specific tombs and their contents is becoming more precise, The author is president of the Oriental art dealership JJ. Lally & Co., 42 East 57th Street, New York 10022. 77 Lally: Early Tang Painted Pottery Figures but many T'ang tomb figures have come onto the art market withou any known provenance. In fact, the great majority of T'ang tomb figures in private collections and museums outside China cannot be traced to any specific tomb. These figures can be assigned to a particular period on stylistic grounds and by comparison with other figures for which the archaeological context is known. A body of knowledge based on the experience of collectors and dealers has been developed over the past sixty to eighty years. It is of course far from scientific information, but it is quite useful, and recent archaeological finds have proven such "market wisdom'' to be correct more often than not. This type of data is seldom recorded, but it is just this kind of information that I will report in this article. A distinctive group of painted pottery figures appeared on the market in 1990. It is impossible to discover how many of the type there are altogether. I can identify twelve figures which are from this same group, and experience would suggest that probably there are at least a dozen or two dozen more. I have sold a figure of a kneeling camel with rider, two male equestrian groups, a very large prancing horse, and two unusual figures of court ladies here at J.]. Lally & Co. in New York. I have seen two other court ladies and two equestrian groups at Eskenazi Ltd. in London, and Giselle Croes of Brussels exhibited a beautiful group of a female rider on horseback at the Paris Bienalle in September of 1990. Other examples from this same set are said to be on the market in Japan, but I have not seen them myself. They almost certainly all came from the same burial site and they all most likely came from the same tomb. They are not radically different from other tomb figures previously seen and published...