Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 11. (Budapest, 1968)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Horváth, Tibor: Report on the Activities of the Hopp Museum of Eastern Asiatic Arts in 1967

Fig. 5. China, Ordos region. Bronze plaque. Flat cast bronze plaque in the form of an argali with the horns bending down on both sides. Along the horns small indentations; below the ears are to be seen. At the eyes, ears and in the indentations of the horns some green patina. The back is hollow. The rendering of the animal is sketchy and the cast is far from perfect. At the muzzle there is a small fracture. Length 5.1, height 3.4 cm. From the first centuries A. D. Inv. No. 67.121. L. F. Fig. 6. China. Tomb figure. T'ang period. Made of clay coated with a yellowish-brown glaze. It represents a man wearing a Central Asian garment, with the face modelled not in the Chinese style. He is in a standing position, with his face looking ahead, the right hand being held to the breast, and the left one to the waist. Only the garment is covered with glaze, on the other parts the whitish clay is visible. Height: 27 cm. Diameter of the pedestal in irregular form: 7.6 cm. Purchase. Inventory number: 67.127. Among the tomb figures of the T'ang period we can find quite often figures representing Central Asian merchants and their attendants. We haven't succeeded in finding the exact analogy of our pottery figure. However his garment resembles very much that of the clay figure representing a henchman, in the 78

th illustration of Mario Prodan's work, "La Poterie T'ang" (Paris, 1960.) It resembles as well the garments of the two other figures in the 10

th and 15

th illustrations published in Wen wu ts'ang k'ao tsu liao, 1958. No. 8. on pages 36 — 37., portraying a stable boy and a camel driver. Either the onecolored glaze, or the size of the camel driver, quite agrees with those of our figure, whose hand position probably shows his leading the animal by the halter, although, in this case, it can also be imagined as a ritual character. Very few of the tomb figures of the T'ang period were unearthed from dated graves, and for this reason, they can be relatively exactly dated. The site of those clay figures of camel drivers, the tomb No. 337 of the T'ang period at Hsian, excavated in 1955, is also undated. However, the above-mentioned publication in Wen wu ts'ang k'ao tsu liao attributed the tomb to the middle of the T'ang period (8

th century), on the basis of its form and finds. Our tomb figure, though made more roughly, can also be refered to this dating. P. P