A GREY POTTERY FIGURE OF AN OX

NORTHERN WEI DYNASTY (AD 386-534)

Details

A GREY POTTERY FIGURE OF AN OX
NORTHERN WEI DYNASTY (AD 386-534)
The ox is powerfully modeled standing foresquare, and its head is finely detailed with flared nostrils, ears pricked below the horns, realistic folds above the eyes, and a leather harness that loops behind the horns and has bosses at the interstices. There are traces of red pigment.
7 in. (17.8 cm.) long

Provenance

J. T. Tai & Co., New York.
Schloss Collection, New York.
Chinese Sculpture from the Collection of Lillian Schloss; Sotheby's New York, 9 December 1987, lot 36.

Literature

Ezekial Schloss, Ancient Chinese Ceramic Sculpture from Han through Tang, 2 vols., Stamford, Connecticut, 1977, vol. II, pl. 39.

Exhibited

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Arts of Ancient China, 1973-1974.

Brought to you by

Michael Bass

asianartny@christies.com +1 212 636 2180

Lot Essay

Compare the similar figure of an ox excavated from a Northern Wei tomb dated AD 524 illustrated in Kaogu, 1972: 4, pl. 19, and the ox with a cart from the tomb of Yuan Shao near Luoyang, Henan, dated to AD 528, illustrated in Kaogu, 1973:4, pl. 12:3. A very similar ox, minus the harness of the present figure, from the Yale University Art Gallery, is illustrated by J. Fontein and Tung Wu in Unearthing China's Past, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1973, p. 167, no. 82. Another ox with a similar type of harness is illustrated by A. Juliano in Bronze, Clay and Stone: Chinese Art in the C.C. Wang Family Collection, 1988, no. 40.

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 466h96 is consistent with the dating of this lot.

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