Chinese Ceramics
The present figure photographed in C. C. Wang's Hong Kong residence in 1983 for Architectural Digest. ‘The Collectors: Of Ink, Clay, and Stone. C.C. Wang in His New York City Residence and Studio,’ Architectural Digest, New York, July 1983, p. 105. The figure is accompanied by another from the tomb, lot 340 in the 1954 Tonying sale, which Mr Wang sold in his important Sotheby’s, New York sale 'The C.C. Wang Family Collection of Important Early Chinese Works of Art', 27 November, 1990, lot 46, being later acquired by J. J. Lally & Co. from whom it was purchased in 1996 by the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Washington (No. S1996.37).
The discussion of the the present figure in the C. C. Wang Collection. Annette L. Juliano, Bronze, Clay and Stone: Chinese art in the C. C. Wang Family Collection (Seattle & London, 1988), pl. 74
Figure of a male mourner in the National Gallery of Asian Art, Washington D. C. (No. S1996.37)
Figure of a female attendant from Shaanxi, formerly in a New Jersey Museum
A LIMESTONE FIGURE OF A FEMALE ATTENDANT 唐 石灰石雕侍女立像
Further images
Provenance
Tonying & Co., New York Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 15 April 1954, lot 338
Collection of Mrs M. Hasserman
Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 1st-2nd June 1977, lot 376
J. J. Lally & Co., New York
The Collection of C. C. Wang
Publications
‘The Collectors: Of Ink, Clay, and Stone. C.C. Wang in His New York City Residence and Studio,’ Architectural Digest, New York, July 1983, p. 105
Annette L. Juliano, Bronze, Clay and Stone: Chinese art in the C. C. Wang Family Collection (Seattle & London, 1988), pl. 74
A Tang limestone figure of an attendant
China, Tang dynasty (618 - 907), 7th Century
The figure belongs to a group of nine limestone sculptures excavated from an early Tang imperial tomb near Xi’an, Shaanxi province. Reported in 1954, the tomb is thought to have belonged to a grandson or great-grandson of the first Tang emperor. The group comprised seven attendants and two horses, each raised on a square or rectangular base.
Stone versions of the more familiar pottery tomb figures are rare in the Tang period. A related group of four smaller limestone figures was excavated from the tomb of Zheng Rentai, dated 664, a satellite tomb of Zhaoling, the mausoleum of Emperor Taizong. Together, these finds show that carved stone figures could form part of elite burial assemblages alongside the better-known ceramic tradition.
Several figures from the present group can now be traced individually. A male attendant is in the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C. (S1996.37), and was formerly in the collection of C. C. Wang, where it was photographed beside the present figure. A closely related female attendant from the same group was sold at Christie’s New York in 1998, while another male figure appeared at Christie’s New York in 2005.
Other comparable Tang limestone attendants are known from the J. T. Tai Foundation, the collection of E. Wolf, the Art Museum of Tokyo and the Musée Guimet, underlining the small number of surviving examples of this type.
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