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.
