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Scientific Analysis Report: A thermoluminescence analysis report issued by Oxford Authentication on 27 August 2026, based on sample number C126m10, sets the firing date of the three samples taken between 900 and 1500 years ago, consistent with the dating above. A copy of the report accompanies this lot.
China, 618-907. Finely modeled standing atop a rectangular plinth, with his arms raised and hands positioned as if holding reins. The figure is dressed in a knee-length tunic with broad lapels, secured at the waist by a wide sash, and covered in a lustrous sancai glaze, with the exception of the high boots, which are left unglazed and painted in a dark tone. The crisply modeled face is distinguished by bulging eyes, a prominent nose, and thick lips, the mouth slightly open to reveal the teeth, and surmounted by hair drawn up beneath a double-knotted cap, all left unglazed to reveal the buff-colored ceramic body beneath.
Provenance: Collection of Louis Depagne, Nice, France, thence by descent. Collection d’un Grand Amateur Fran?ais, acquired from the above. Louis Depagne (1926-2006) was a French antiquarian, collector, and connoisseur of Asian art, active in Nice from the 1950s. Having begun his career as an antiques dealer at the Marché aux Puces, he later established Curiosités in Nice, specializing in Chinese and Japanese works of art, including ceramics, bronzes, sculpture, and textiles. Depagne developed his passion for Chinese art through scholarly reading and the formation of his own collection, which, according to the Indian writer and art historian Baldoon Dhingra in 1958, he assembled “with an almost instinctive feeling for the delicacy, charm, and sense of peace that Orientalia always brought him”. His friend and fellow collector Marcel Gerbe likewise recalled him as a knowledgeable sinologist and discerning connoisseur, distinguished by the exacting standards he consistently applied when selecting objects for acquisition. As Depagne himself would often tell Gerbe, “The pebbles on the beach are thousands of years old, but that alone does not make them valuable.”
Condition: Good condition, commensurate with age. Expected ancient wear and manufacturing irregularities, including small firing cracks, as well as the minor old repairs and touchups typically found on authentic Tang-dynasty ceramics. Remnants of old varnish and ancient pigments. Presenting exceptionally well. Small holes from sample-taking, now filled.
French Export License: Certificat d’exportation pour un bien culturel, nr. 104677, dated 5 November 2008, has been granted. A copy of this document accompanies this lot.
Weight: 3.8 kg
Dimensions: Height 62.6 cm
With an associated padded-silk storage box. (2)
Individuals from across the Eastern Hemisphere traveled to China during the Tang dynasty along the Silk Roads, the extensive network of overland and maritime routes that facilitated commercial and cultural exchange between Asia, Europe, and East Africa. While many arrived as merchants and subsequently returned to their places of origin, others settled permanently in major cosmopolitan centers such as Chang’an, the imperial capital, and Luoyang. Among these communities were Central Asian grooms employed in the care and management of horses belonging to the Tang elite.
The Central Asian identity of the present groom is articulated through deliberately exaggerated, almost caricatural facial features, notably the heavy brows, prominent staring eyes, and exceptionally large nose, together with the distinctive headgear. Such physiognomic conventions were commonly employed in Tang funerary sculpture to characterize figures of non-Chinese origin. The attire, comprising a short coat with broad lapels and trousers tucked into knee-high boots, further reflects modes of dress associated with Central and Western Asia.
Literature comparison:
Compare a related sancai glazed figure of a groom, dated Tang dynasty, unearthed in 1981 from the Tomb of An Pu and his wife in Dongshan, Longmen, and now in the Luoyang Museum. Compare a related pottery figure of a foreign groom, dated late 7th to early 8th century, 47.5 cm high, illustrated in Virginia Bower, From Court to Caravan: Chinese Tomb Sculptures from the Collection of Anthony M. Solomon, 2002, p. 127, pl. 43. Compare a related pottery figure of a groom, described as Western Turkic, dated Tang dynasty, in the Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel Schloss Collection, and illustrated in Ezekiel Schloss, Foreigners in Ancient Chinese Art, vol. II, 1969, pl. 10a.
Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s New York, 23 March 2012, lot 1963
Price: USD 30,000 or approx. EUR 38,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A large sancai-glazed pottery figure of a groom, Tang dynasty
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling, glazes, and size (63.5 cm), with similar pose, robe, headdress, and facial features.
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