Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early waresHobson, R. L. (Robert Lockhart)
History
Chinese pottery and porcelain; vol. 1. Pottery and early wares
Hobson, R. L. (Robert Lockhart)
Porcelain, Chinese; Pottery, Chinese
A complete set of grave goods from a tomb opened by the Lao-tung railway
near Lao Yang in the Honan Fu have been acquired by the British Museum
through a railway engineer on the spot. They may be taken as a typical
and, I believe, quite reliable, example of the grave furniture of a
T'ang personage of importance. They include six covered jars of graceful
oval form, made of hard white ware and coated with thin glaze of pale
yellowish or faint green tint, which ends in the characteristic T'ang
fashion in a wavy line several inches above the base. They measure about
thirteen inches in height. These are presumed to have held the six kinds
of grain. Next comes a graceful vase, probably for wine, with ovoid body,
tall, slender neck, with two horizontal bands, a cup-shaped mouth, and
two high, elegantly carved handles with serpent heads which bite on to
the rim (Plate 14, Fig. 2). The only other vessels were a circular tray,
on which stood a small, squat vase, with trilobe sides, small mouth, and
three rudimentary feet, surrounded by seven shallow cups. Like the wine
vase and covered jars, these have flat bases, in most cases carefully
smoothed and lightly bevelled at the edge.[44] The retinue consisted of a
charming figure of a lady on a horse, eight other ladies (probably of the
harem) with high, peaked head-dress, low-necked dresses with high waists,
and a shawl over the shoulders and falling down from the arms like two
long sleeves; natural feet are indicated in every case. With these were
two figures of priestly appearance, with long cloaks and hoods, three
other men in distinctive costumes, eleven retainers in civil costume with
peaked head-gear, long coats with lappets open at the neck, waist belts,
and high boots, their right hands held across the breast and their left
at the side. One of these figures is remarkable for his foreign features,
with exaggerated and pointed nose, suggesting a Western Asiatic origin.
There are, besides, four men, apparently in armour, and two tall figures
who seem to wear cap helmets with camail falling down the neck and
breast armour, recalling in many ways our own mediæval men-at-arms. The
supernatural element is represented by two strange, squatting quadrupeds
with legs like a bull, human heads with large ears and a single horn
which are called by the Chinese _t'u kuai_ or "earth-spirits." Finally,
in addition to man and super-man, the animal world was represented by
two saddled horses, two dromedaries, two pigs, two sheep, a beautifully
modelled dog, and a goose. What more could a man desire in the underworld?
All these figures are of the usual white plaster-like body, with the
pale, straw-coloured or greenish glazes which long burial has dissolved
into iridescence where it has not actually caused it to flake away. Some
of them stand on flat, plain bases; others on their own feet and robes.
The latter kind are all hollow beneath, and the quadrupeds have a large
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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