Mortuary Figurine

Glazed pottery figure of a horse with an amber saddle cloth and mainly cream glazed body. Symbolizing status and power, this horse figurine would have been placed with other ceremonial and everyday objects in a tomb. In the Tang Dynasty, the saddled horse was more common than the ox cart which in earlier periods symbolized a means of transport to the afterlife. The tri-color glaze, known as sancai, was more expensive then plain terracotta. It should indicate that the horses were made for an aristocratic occupant. Often mass-produced using a piece-mold technique, horses were slightly altered through adjustments in the neck and legs. C461 through C468 is a set.