SUI-EARLY TANG DYNASTY, 7TH CENTURY

These two figures are similar to a group of ten seated female court musicians in the Shoso-in, Japan, illustrated by Ryoichi Hayashi in The Silk Road and the Shoso-in, New York/Tokyo, 1975, p. 96, fig. 103. Three similar painted pottery figures of seated female court musicians illustrated by J. Baker in Appeasing the Spirits: Sui and Tang Dynasty Tomb Sculpture from the Schloss Collection, Hofstra Museum, Hofstra University, 1993, p. 18, no. 9, are described as wearing Kuchean fashions, and representing the Kuchean modes of music and entertainment that were popular during the Sui and early Tang periods. The same costume and Kuchean hair style can also be seen on a group of standing figures illustrated p. 17, nos. 6 and 7. In discussing a group of nine similarly attired and coiffed standing figures of female musicians illustrated in China: A History in Art, New York, 1979, p. 132 (top), the authors, B. Smith and Wango Weng, note that female musicians from Chinese Turkestan played for the court, and that "musicians from Kucha in Central Asia probably exerted the most influence" at court.

The results of Oxford thermoluminescence test nos. 466h92 and 466h93 are consistent with the dating of this lot.