Fig. 3.—Attendant with dish of food. Height 9 1/2 inches.
Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Plate 7.—T'ang Sepulchral Pottery.
Fig. 1.—Figure of a Lady in elaborate costume, unglazed. Height 14 1/2. Eumorfopoulos Collection.
Fig. 2.—Vase, white pottery with traces of blue mottling: the glaze has perished. Height 8 1/2 inches. Breuer Collection.
Fig. 3.—Sphinx–like Monster, green and yellow glazes. Height 25 inches. Eumorfopoulos Collection.
A few examples of the tomb figures are illustrated in the adjoining plates. The tall, slender figure on Plate 7, Fig. 1, seems to represent a lady of distinction. The elaborate head–dress and costume, the necklace and pendant and the belt are all carefully modelled; and the Elizabethan appearance of the collar is curious and interesting. The ware is soft and white like pipeclay, though still caked with the reddish loess clay from which it was exhumed. The style of this figure with its slender proportions is analogous to that of the graceful stone sculptures of the Northern Wei period. The genial monster in white clay and splashed green and yellow glazes illustrated on Plate 7 is one of the many sphinx–like creatures found in the tombs over which they were supposed to exercise a beneficial influence. Sometimes they have human heads on the bull body, and they are then described as t'u kuai or earth–spirits. In the present example we have a form which strongly resembles certain Persian or Sassanian monsters in bronze; and it is highly probable that the idea of this creature came from a western Asiatic source.