A PAINTED POTTERY FIGURE OF A SOLDIER


Northern dynasties, circa 500CEStanding at attention with his eyes focused forward and his head sheathed in a helmet, his right hand grasping a weapon that is no longer preserved and his left hand resting on a shield centered with a feline head that front his baggy trousers and thick tunic worn beneath a breastplate accented with raised lotus flowers, the surfaces showing remains of white slip, carmine pigment and burial earth. 18 3/8in (46.6cm) high
|ProvenanceJ. J. Lally & Co., New YorkFor warriors of similar stance and dress excavated from Northern Qi tombs, see Geng Baochang, Zhong guo wen wu jing hua da quan: Tao ci juan (Taibei, Taiwan shang wu yin shu guan gong si, 1993), p. 115, no. 406 (excavated in 1971 from the tomb of Mi Sui, the shield centered with a tiger head [53cm high]); and p. 116, no. 407 (excavated in 1978 in Cixian, Hebei from a tomb dated to Tianbao fourth year [553], the warrior with his right arm raised, the shield molded with a tiger head surrounded by four dancing figures [48.5cm high]). See also the soldier with similar lotus flowers in high relief on his armor in Candace J. Lewis, Into the Afterlife: Hand and Six Dynasties Chinese Tomb Sculpture from the Schloss Collection (Vassar Collect, New York, 1990), no. 54, pp. 118-9.