China, 618-906 or later. Well modeled seated on a waisted stool, poised with one hand at the waist holding a lotus flower, the other arm along the torso. The long gown glazed in alternating swaths of bright green and amber, crisply modeled with vertical stripes enclosing trefoil florets, the amber glazed décolleté bodice with a blue glazed hem and green glazed sleeves, two blue glazed shoes peeking out under the dress. The unglazed face with painted features framed by an elaborate coiffure, parted at the center and swept up to either side into a double-topknot.

Provenance: British trade.
Condition: Overall good condition, commensurate with age and presenting very well. Extensive wear, minor losses, firing cracks, glaze flakes, small chips, old repairs, the seat with an aperture for steaming drilled before the firing and with minor associated nibbles, all exactly as expected from authentic Tang dynasty excavations.

Weight: 1,307 g
Dimensions: Height 37.1 cm

This particularly charming figure is rare due to it being applied with the precious cobalt-blue glaze. The application of this expensive glaze suggests that the original owner was one of wealth and privilege. The present figure combines an elaborately decorated dress with hair simply bunched on either side of the head in a style more usually associated with younger girls. This gives a rather endearing impression of a young girl in her best clothes. In her introduction to the Exhibition of Tang Sancai Pottery Selected from the Collection of Alan and Simone Hartman, Margaret Medley notes that a similarly dressed standing figure with hair in side-bunches was that of a ‘young adolescent girl’.

The source of manufacture for these figures has proven difficult to identify. Among figural representations, sancai-glazed sculptures of seated ladies are relatively rare and to date it appears that there were very few kilns known to produce sancai-glazed statues at all. The Gongyi (Gongxian) kilns in Henan province in north China are well known as the producers of China’s finest sancai lead-glazed wares, but excavations at the site have revealed few figural remains. A misfired sancai-glazed lady, seated and holding a duck-form vessel, was discovered at the Liquanfang kilnsite in Chang’an, illustrated in Lu Junmao & Zhang Guozhu, Fragmentary Ceramics of Ancient Xi’an, Xi’an, 2003, page 8, which is of similar form to a sancai figure unearthed from the tomb of Li Du and his wife in Changzhi, Shanxi, dated to AD 710, illustrated in Hsie Mingliang, Zhongguo gudai qianyoutao de shijie (The world of lead-glazed objects from ancient China: from the Warring States to Tang), Taipei, 2014, fig. 5.28.

Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related sancai pottery figure of a seated court lady, 8^th to 9^th century, in the Phoenix Art Museum, accession number 2006.36. A near-identical figure, seated with a related hair style and blue and amber-glazed dress, was exhibited at Sui to Tang Dynasty Art, Osaka City Museum, 1976, catalog no. 200. Another closely related female seated figure, with slightly different hair style but wearing an identical dress, is in the Nezu Museum of Art and illustrated in Selected Masterpieces from the Nezu Museum Collection, Japan, 2009, pl. 67 (fig. 1).

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby’s New York, 11 September 2019, lot 741
Price: USD 27,500 or approx. EUR 30,500 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A sancai-glazed pottery figure of a seated court lady, Tang dynasty
Expert remark: Compare the closely related pose, dress, decoration, hair, and size (31.8 cm)

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Christie’s Hong Kong, 29 November 2017, lot 2916
Price: HKD 1,250,000 or approx. EUR 166,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A very rare inscribed blue and amber-glazed pottery figure of a seated lady, Tang dynasty (618-907)
Expert remark: Compare the closely related pose, dress, decoration, hair, and size (30 cm). Note the inscription to the base in black ink ‘Guang jia zhi nu zi‘, which may be translated as ‘daughter of the Guang family’.



唐代罕見三彩坐姿陶俑
中國，618-906年。女俑呈坐姿，面容圓潤，體態豐腴，衣紋褶皺自然流暢，一手自然下垂，一手置於腹前，顯得悠閒自如，面部未上釉，五官秀美，可見工匠有很強的人體刻畫塑形能力。衣領敞口，衣紋流暢，修飾三葉草小花，綠釉和黃釉是這件陶俑的主色調。

來源：英國古玩交易。
品相：總體狀況良好，大面積磨損、小缺損、輕微燒製裂紋，釉面剝落，小缺口，小修，燒製前鑽有蒸氣孔，並伴有輕微的磕損。

重量：1,307 克
尺寸：高 37.1 厘米

人俑身著裝飾精美的連衣裙，頭髮簡單地束在頭的兩側，Margaret Medley在介紹 “Alan and Simone Hartman收藏唐三彩陶器展”時指出，一個穿著相似、頭髮束成兩束的人俑意味著這是一個“青春期少女”。

文獻比較：
比較一件非常相近的公元八至九世紀三彩宮廷侍女坐像，收藏於 Phoenix Art Museum，收藏編號2006.36。一件幾乎相同的坐像，有相近的髮型和藍琥珀色洋裝，展於大阪市立美術館《Sui to Tang Dynasty Art》，1976年，圖錄編號200。另一件非常相近的女性坐像，髮型稍微不同，但著有幾乎相同的洋裝，收藏於Nezu Museum of Art ，見《Selected Masterpieces from the Nezu Museum Collection》，日本，2009年，編號67 (圖1)。

拍賣結果比較：
形制：非常相近
拍賣：紐約蘇富比，2019年9月11日，lot 741
價格：USD 27,500（相當於今日EUR 30,500）
描述：唐三彩女坐俑
專家評論：比較非常相近的姿勢、洋裝、裝飾、髮型和尺寸(31.8 厘米) 。

拍賣結果比較：
形制：非常相近
拍賣：香港佳士得，2017年11月29日，lot 2916
價格：HKD 1,250,000（相當於今日EUR 166,000）
描述：唐藍釉三彩仕女坐俑
專家評論：比較非常相近的姿勢、洋裝、裝飾、髮型和尺寸(30 厘米)。請注意器底書「光家之女子」款。