Tomb figure of a woman on horseback

Object Details

• Description

  Pottery with "three-color" glaze.

  Clay: fine, whitish buff, fired medium hard.

  Glaze: transparent, with fine crackle, over areas of brown and green on white surface; woman's head unglazed and painted, also other small areas.

• Provenance

  To 1948

  Jun Tsei Tai (1911-1992), Shanghai, to February 1948 [1]

  From 1948 to 1952

  C. T. Loo & Company, New York, purchased from Jun Tsei Tai in February 1948 [2]

  From 1952

  Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from C. T. Loo & Company on June 25, 1952 [3]

  Notes:

  [1] See C. T. Loo's stockcard no. 46068: "Pottery statuette of a horse and a lady rider, wearing a high top knot and an open bossom [sic], short jacket and riding breeches in green and yellow glaze. Horse of mixed breed of Percheron and Arabian in creamy glaze and yellow and green mane. Central Asia T'ang. Ht: 16 ins. Lt: 14 ½," copy in object file. According to an annotation on the stockcard, the object was acquired in China from J. T. Tai in February 1948.

  Jun Tsei Tai (more commonly known in the West as J. T. Tai), known also as Dai Fubao in Shanghai, was a successful art dealer who was initially based in Shanghai China. Tai became one of C. T. Loo's most prolific suppliers in the 1940s. In 1949, however, J. T. Tai fled with his family to Hong Kong, when Communist leaders came into power. In 1950, he immigrated to New York City, where he established J. T. Tai & Company, a successful company that specialized in the sale of Chinese arts.

  According to some sources, the object belonged to a group of sixteen equestrian figures reportedly excavated from a tomb at Luoyang, Henan province prior to 1943, see Christie's, New York, Fine Chinese Ceramics, Jades and Works of Art, auction cat. (New York: June 4, 1987), under lot195 and Annette L. Juliano, Bronze, Clay and Stone: Chinese Art in the C. C. Wang Family Collection (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1988), under cat. no. 54.

  [2] See Loo's stockcard cited above. The object was transferred to the Freer Gallery in April 1948.

  See C. T. Loo's Approval Memorandum, dated April 14, 1948, copy in object file. In the memorandum, Loo stated that the object was excavated in Sian Fu [Xi'an], Shaanxi province.

  [3] See C. T. Loo's invoice, dated June 25, 1952.

• Collection

  Freer Gallery of Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Year of the Horse: Chinese Horse Paintings (February 24 to September 2, 2002)

  Chinese Ceramics (March 15, 1982 to July 10, 1986)

  Chinese Art (March 9, 1981 to March 12, 1982)

  Chinese Ceramics (May 9, 1980 to March 6, 1981)

  Chinese Ceramics (April 11, 1978 to September 4, 1980)

  Chinese Art (January 1, 1963 to March 6, 1981)

  Centennial Exhibition, Gallery 13 (November 10, 1955 to March 1, 1957)

• Previous custodian or owner

  Jun Tsei Tai 戴潤齋 (1911-1992)

  C.T. Loo & Company (1914-1948)

• Origin

  Possibly Luoyang, Henan province, China

• Credit Line

  Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment

• Type

  Sculpture

• Restrictions and Rights

  CC0 - Creative Commons (CC0 1.0)

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Keep Exploring

• Related Resources

  collections.si.edu

• Date

  700s

• Name

  Tai, Jun Tsei, C.T. Loo & Company

• Place

  Luoyang, China, Henan province

• Topic

  Art, Animals, Chinese Art, Horses, Pottery, Tang dynasty (618 - 907), Funerary, Ceramics, Woman

• Culture

  Chinese

• Object Type

  Sculpture