Intact partially glazed terracotta sculpture depicting a richly dressed young man riding a horse. Artifacts of this type, popular in China during the Tang period and often buried with the nobility, are characterized by the extreme variety of the subjects and by the almost infinite number of chromatic combinations of their precious glazing based on the so-called “Sancai” palette (literally “three colors”). The Tang fictile production imposes that, for aesthetic reasons, the glaze leaves the pottery figure partially uncovered. This rider shows a sober amber glaze, made employing the iron oxide, which imitates the horse fur, leaving the figure almost entirely uncovered.
Lot with thermoluminescence TL test. by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, dated September 1995.