Ca. 618-907. Tang Dynasty. A delicate terracotta female dancer figure wearing a long flowing, deep orange gown with short sleeves and a waist sash. Her upper body is slightly bend to the side, with one arm up in the air, indicating motion. The dancer is carefully modelled, with the hair done up in double buns, pink cheeks, red pursed lips, delicate brows and smiling eyes. Dance as an art form reached its peak in China during the Tang Dynasty, which is now known as the golden age of Chinese music and dance. Indeed, during this time the Great Music Bureau was created to train musicians and dancers for the imperial court. Terracotta figures like this one were funerary offerings made for the service and entertainment of the owner, ensuring that their journey in the underworld was a happy one. Terracotta tomb attendants seemed to have first appeared during the Western Han Dynasty. However, it is during Tang China that the cultural tradition of displaying wealth in elite tombs reached its peak, with an increased production of terracotta statuettes. The Tang Dynasty was a thrilling time in Chinese history, when trade flourished along the Silk Route and a unified China was the richest country on earth. Chang'an (now Xi'an) was the Tang capital, and it was one of the most cosmopolitan cities on earth, filled with foreigners who had travelled to China to trade. The influence of foreigners and talented native Chinese, combined with the economic prosperity brought on by trade and the new religion from India, Buddhism, created a powerful cultural milieu where poetry and other forms of art flourished. To find out more about the Tang dynasty and its art production, see Yang, X. (1999). The golden age of Chinese archaeology: Celebrated archaeological finds from the People's Republic of China. New Haven; London: Yale University Press; 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:285mm / W:135mm ; 735g. Provenance: From the private collection of a Somerset gentleman; previously in an old British collection, formed in the 1990s on the UK /European art markets.