Provenance:
- Private Collection, The Netherlands
Condition Report Available
Price on request
This object can be viewed in our gallery.
A pale buff pottery horse standing on three legs, with its right fore-leg raised. Naturalistically modelled, it has a powerful arched neck with its head turned slightly to the left. The hollow body was moulded in parts, and assembled before firing at a low temperature. Typical of the high-Tang sculptures, this horse shows great expression and movement, which gives it its animated appearance. Its posture suggests this horse may represent one of the famous Tang dancing horses. During the Tang Dynasty, horses were essential for travel, transportation and military use. With the flourishing of the Silk Road, better breeds entered China from neighbouring regions - such as Samarkand - and national breeding programmes were set up. Starting with only around 5,000 government owned horses, numbers reached a staggering 700,000 within 40 years!
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