Ca. 618-907 AD. Chinese Tang Dynasty. A beautiful pottery figure of a prancing horse. The spirited horse is shown with left foreleg raised, red mane swept to one side, mouth open and ears laid back. The tail is depicted docked and bound in the traditional fashion. Traces of red colour are visible on the hooves. The saddle is covered with a red cloth draped over the saddle and gathered on the sides. Below the saddle, there is a cloth decorated with a blue and red floral design. The horse's trappings are completed by an elaborate harness with dangling tassels on the horse's croup. War horses were the pride of the Tang, a dynasty of prosperity, military expansion and artistic achievement. In 667 AD, Tang dynasty statues declared the ownership of horses as an aristocratic privilege, forbidding artisans and tradesmen the right to own horses. The Emperor Xuanzong, for instance, displayed great passion for his mounts commissioning paintings from the famed artist Han Gan (c. 706-783 AD). In the Lidai minghua ji ('Record of famous painters of all periods'; 847), Zhang Yanyuan noted that Emperor Xuanzong ‘loved large horses and ordered Han to paint the most noble of his more than 400,000 steeds’. It is easy to speculate that Han Gan’s distinctive style which captures the animals in spirited movement, emphasizing their powerful, rounded and muscular forms while retaining an easy naturalism, influenced the artisans who sculpted the present horse. This piece has been precisely dated by means of a Thermo Luminescence analysis carried out by Ralf Kotalla, an independent German Laboratory. The samples collected date the piece to the period reflected in its style, whilst also showing no modern trace elements. The TL certificate with its full report will accompany this lot. For more information on the importance of horses in China, see Cooke, B. (ed.) (2000). Imperial China- The Art of the Horse in Chinese History: Exhibition Catalogue. Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington. For more general information on the Tang Dynasty, see Benn, C. (2002). Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty. Westport: Greenwood Press and Watt, J. C. Y., et al. (2004). China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200–750 A.D. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.Size: L:520mm / W:475mm ; 8.35kg