9. LARGE PAINTED POTTERY FIGURE OF A COURT LADY
Tang Dynasty (618-907)
23” (58.5cm.) high

The figure exudes an air of courtly elegance, standing in a stylish pose with the hip swayed slightly to its left. She wears an open neck loose-fitting robe with wide, angled sleeves painted all over with floral and foliate motifs in red, orange, pink, blue and turquoise pigments on a black ground. She wears a belt around the hip with notched sections at the back. The left hand is poised on the belt with the right hand raised in a graceful gesture. The robe is slit on the right revealing an underskirt of fine material and a pair of pointed slippers covered in a fine weave.

The unusual and rich colouration and textile designs on the robe of the present figure may be compared with the painting of Tang court ladies dressed in very elaborately patterned silks previously attributed to Zhou Fang (c. 730-800) but probably a 10th century copy. Entitled ‘Ladies Wearing Flowers in their Hair’, the work is published by Criag Clunas, Art of China, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997, pp. 48-9, pl. 18.

The design of the present lady’s robe, although probably intended as a woven or dyed design, has a strong stylistic resemblance to the famous embroidered and couched white silk damask bag from the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas at Dunhuang published by R. Soame Jenyns and William Watson in Chinese Art- the Minor Arts II, Office du Livre, Fribourg, 1965, pp. 32-3, no. 10. Another earthenware cold-painted court lady excavated in 1998 in Changan county, and now in the Xian Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology wears red silk of an equally elaborate design round the shoulders. This is illustrated in The Glory of the Silk Road – Art from Ancient China, Dayton Art Institute, 2003, exhibition catalogue no. 97.

Two different styles of pottery court ladies are illustrated by Margaret Medley, Tang Pottery and Porcelain, pls. 39 and 40. The first, wearing a short-sleeved outer coat belted at the hips and with a double chignon is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the other wearing a long pleated robe and scarf and carrying a pet dog is in the Tokyo National Museum. However, both are of smaller size with scant traces of pigments.