13. RARE BLUE AND SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURE
OF A LIONESS AND CUB
Tang Dynasty (618-907)
7 1/8” (18.2 cm.) high

The lioness is seated on its haunches in upright posture with its head turned slightly to its left; the right limb is raised, poised by its head. She wears a collar with a bell. The mane is arranged in tight curls. She nurses a young cub suckling at her chest. The sculpture is covered predominantly with a blue glaze around the head and chest, with green and amber colours highlighting the lower body and limbs.

With the arrival of Buddhism, the lion was introduced to China, usually as paired guardian figures flanking a censer on gilt-bronzes and stone sculptures of the Six Dynasties. By the Tang Dynasty, lions were ubiquitous motifs on gold and silver, mirrors and large scale as well as more intimate-sized stone sculptures in marble, limestone, steatite and puddingstone. Lionesses, however, appear very rarely, especially in this fearsome, protective pose while suckling its young. Sancai-glazed lions are usually portrayed in more relaxed poses. A seated model with its head turned, scratching its chin with the hind leg, is published in Sekai Toji Zenshu, Shogakugan Series, vol. 11, p. 87, no. 67. A blue, amber and straw-glazed seated model with its head turned to gnaw its hind leg, formerly in the Tsui Museum of Art, was included in the exhibition, Art Treasures from Shanghai and Hong Kong, The University of Hong Kong Art Gallery, November 1996 – January 1997, p. 89, no. 22. A small blue-glazed example in the Freer Gallery of Art is illustrated by William Watson, Tang and Liao Ceramics, New York, 1984, no. 253.