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34 A magnificent and rare group of eight painted pottery female musicians on horseback Tang dynasty, early 8th century Height: 12 3/8 to 13 1/4 in, 31.5 to 33.8 cm the slender young women wear close-fitting tunics, one with wide lapels and the others with round necks, over trousers and boots. Their facial features are particularly well defined and attractive and their hair is worn in two buns. Each plays a different instrument: the horizontal flute, the vertical flute, the konghou (harp), the paixiao (panpipe), the pipa (lute), the sheng (pipe harmonica) and the yaogu (hourglass drum), the eighth has her hands free. The horses are spirited and each is shown with its neck and head at a different angle. The figures bear extensive original pigments: two of the girls are dressed in green, two in dark red, two in an orange tone and two in yellow, all with black boots. Similarly, the horses range in colour from pale yellow to red with the remains of black trappings. All the horses stand four-square on pottery bases. |
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This dating is consistent with Oxford Authentication’s reports C101d87-90. Individual figures of musicians, both male and female, are known, but it is rare to find such a large orchestra. While each figure is sensitively and naturalistically modelled with subtle differences of pose, retaining a sense of individuality, they obviously form a set. The group is also remarkable for the extent of the original pigments and the condition. Examples of the transverse flute, the paixiao and the sheng have been recovered from the tomb of Marquis Yi of the state of Zeng (c. 433 B.C.) and are discussed by Feng Guangsheng in So, Music in the Age of Confucius, pp. 87-99. However, instruments such as the konghou, pipa and drums reflect the popularity of Central Asian music that first appeared in China during Han times, became fashionable during the Sui and continued into the Tang. Thrasher illustrates a painting of a celestial musician with a konghou from Cave 285 at Dunhuang, dating to the 3rd or 4th century A.D., as pl. 8 in Chinese Musical Instruments. For an overview of music during the Tang dynasty, see Schafer, The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics, pp. 50-7. Two smaller groups of closely related equestrian figures, one a group of musicians, the other of hunters, of similar size and with similarly spirited horses are illustrated in Yang, The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China, nos. 170 and 171, pp. 492-7. Both these groups come from the tomb of Yu Yin and Princess Jinxiang, Xi’an, Shaanxi province. Yu Yin was a Tang official who died in 689 and his wife, Princess Jinxiang, died in 722. The princess’s grandfather was Gaozu, the founder of the Tang dynasty. Michael Knight notes that while sancai glazes were “becoming the preferred finish” for the funerary wares of the highest ranking Tang aristocracy, “As sculptural representations of the fashions of the time, the highest quality painted pottery mingqi tend to be more successful than those that are glazed” and that “Tang mingqi artisans were best able to explore the details of facial type, fabric design and decoration, hairstyle and the other accoutrements that fascinated the Tang aristocracy” in painted pottery (pp. 490-1). A group of painted pottery polo players, with similar hairstyles and clothing, excavated in 1958 from a Tang tomb in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, is illustrated in National Museum of Chinese History, Exhibition of Chinese History, no. 7-6-9, p. 129. An orchestra of eight musicians on horseback, lacking some instruments, is illustrated in Girard-Geslan, Of Earth and Fire: The T. T. Tsui Collection of Chinese Art in the National Gallery of Australia, no. 18, pp. 40-1, where it is noted that such apparently complete ensembles are not often found. |
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