A PAINTED STRAW-GLAZED TORSO OF A GUARDIAN

SUI/EARLY TANG DYNASTY, 7TH CENTURY

Details

A PAINTED STRAW-GLAZED TORSO OF A GUARDIAN
SUI/EARLY TANG DYNASTY, 7TH CENTURY
Finely and crisply modeled, the face detailed in black with beard, mustache, eyes and scowling brows, his hands positioned and hollowed to hold weapons, wearing breast and back plates bound with cords and buckled straps, with animal mask epaulets at the shoulders, wearing a close-fitting leather helmet with long flaps that protect the neck, covered in a finely crackled yellowish straw glaze, and showing traces of pale blue, green, red and black pigments, with gilt highlights
13¼ in. (33.7 cm.) high, wood stand

Provenance

The Collection of Captain S.N. Ferris Luboshez, USN (Ret'd); Sotheby's, 18 November 1982, lot 72.
Sotheby's, New York, 9 December 1987, lot 215.
Greenwald Collection no. 4.

Literature

Illustrated in Arts of Asia, 1972, July-August, p. 29. Washington Post Magazine, 26 March 1972.
Gerald M. Greenwald, The Greenwald Collection, Two Thousand Years of Chinese Ceramics, 1996, no. 4.

Exhibited

Chinese Art from the Ferris Luboshez Collection, University of Maryland Art Gallery, 23 March - 30 April 1972, no. 76, fig. 6.

If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.

View condition report

Lot Essay

An almost identical (complete) figure in the Royal Ontario Museum is illustrated by M. Medley, Tang Pottery and Porcelain, London/Boston, 1981, p. 53, pls. 43a & b. Another almost identical (compete) figure excavated in 1971 from the tomb of Zheng Rentai (dated 664), Liquan, Shaanxi province, and now in the Shaanxi History Museum, is illustrated in by James C.Y. Watt et al., China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, pp. 292-3, no. 184(b).

More from Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Part I and Part II Including Property from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections

View All