Chinese Ming Dynasty Green-Glazed Pottery Tomb Attendant Figure

East Asia, China, Ming Dynasty. A standing attendant modeled in earthenware and cloaked in a flowing green lead-glazed robe that pools in deep vertical folds about the feet. The figure stands at attention upon a stepped plinth, hands clasped before the chest in a gesture of deferential service, the long sash and overlapping lapels rendered with crisp, confident modeling. The face and hands retain their warm unglazed terracotta tone, the features picked out in white slip and pigment, while the cap and footwear are touched with black. Such mingqi were crafted expressly for burial, populating the tomb with a retinue of servants, guards, and courtiers intended to attend the deceased in the afterlife. The cool copper-green glaze, a hallmark of Ming funerary ceramics, lends this silent steward an enduring dignity. Tomb figures of this type belong to a long Chinese tradition of mingqi, "spirit goods," produced from at least the Han period and revived in lead-glazed earthenware during the Ming. Arranged in processional groups within the tomb chamber, attendants like this one embodied the household and officialdom that a person of rank expected to command beyond death. The characteristic green derives from a copper-fluxed lead glaze fired at comparatively low temperatures, leaving the flesh areas deliberately unglazed so that facial features could be finished in cold pigment, much of which is typically lost to burial. Item # 194626

Estimate:$225

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