Chinese Han Dynasty Painted Pottery Musician (Zither)

This fine pottery figure of a kneeling musician in the act of playing a stringed instrument, probably a zither or similar, was made during the Han Dynasty (206 BC - AD 220). It is quite "heavily-potted" and made from a fairly high-fired pottery that has been cold-painted in a thick white pigment on top of which are traces of red and black pigments used for highlighting the details of the clothing and facial features.

Interestingly, to the underside of the instrument is a run of iridescent green glaze. This figure clearly was not glazed so this is no doubt a drip from a glazed item being fired at the same time as this figure. The green glaze has reacted to long exposure to moisture (some 2,000 years!) to give it the iridescence.

Height 16.75 cm. Condition really is very good. There is some loss of pigment although a good amount does still remain. Some repair may have occurred although none is obvious.

Figures such as this are rarely, if at all, found in isolation; they are usually accompanied by other musicians and entertainers. We offer two others (our stock numbers MB985 & MB986) as well as a larger pottery model of a drum (MB987), all apparently excavated together. We recently acquired these from a local collection that had been sourced from specialist suppliers in Hong Kong whilst the collector lived there during the 1980s and 90s.

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