Tang Horses
Attract $1.576 Million in New York
NEW YORK CITY -- An extremely rare pair of sancai-glazed pottery
horses from the Tang Dynasty topped Sotheby's Fine Chinese
Ceramics and Works of Art auction this past Thursday, March 27.
The auction, featuring 356 lots, of which 253 found buyers
resulting in a 71 percent sold rate, grossed $5,398,200.
The pair of horses were of "imposing size," each roughly 27
inches high and 30 inches in length. "It is extremely rare to
find two large Tang horses of sancai-glazed pottery molded in
this way as a complementary pair, with different colored coats,
differently groomed manes and different saddle blankets, but
otherwise identically sculpted, of the same powerful build, angle
of the head and molding of the face, and with the musculature
identically rendered with distinctive relief molding and deeply
carved grooves," stated the catalog. With one horse in black and
the companion horse in a rare "strawberry roan" color, the pair
realized $1,576,000, including premium, selling to a private
collector.
A set of 16 gold lacquer and polychrome lohan, each seated in a
different position and dating from the Eighteenth Century, did
well going to a private collector at $288,000, a pair of Ju Ming
log-form bronzes brought $243,200, and a pair of painted pottery
prancing horses from the Tang dynasty sold at $232,000.
An inscribed "Duan" stone brushpot from the Qing dynasty,
Yongzheng, sold sell above the $20/30,000 presale estimate
bringing $220,800, while a kinuta glazed longquan celadon vase
realized $142,400.
