Craft:Chinese traditional handicraft with thousands of years history

Origin:Luoyang

Tang San Cai, also called Tricolor Glazed Pottery and a gem of ancient Chinese art, is a kind of handmade glazed ware of exquisite craftsmanship created in the Northern and Southern Dynasty (386-589) about 1,400 years ago. During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the production of Tang San Cai reached its peak, which is part of the reason the pottery got the name of Tang San Cai.

Luoyang, named the eastern capital in ancient times, in Henan Province was the home of Tang San Cai, and most of unearthed Tang San Cai was found in Luoyang.

Tang San Cai is a polychrome handicraft with yellow, green, and white as its major tones. It is fired with lead glaze and presents a harmonious complex of varied colors, deep and light. The process is complicated: first, bake the ready mode in kilns until the temperature reaches 1,100oC, then take it out and apply glaze on it; bake it again in kilns at a temperature of about 900¡ãC.

Tang San Cai items that have been unearthed include horses, humans, and even pillows, and camels, of which the pottery camel is one of the best. Its head rises high, as if telling stories about merchant caravans along the Silk Road in the remote past and the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty.

Being the gem of ancient Chinese art, Tang San Cai absorbed the advantages of Chinese painting, sculpture and stone carving. It features fleshy figures, regular and exquisite technics, compact carving traces, and smooth lines, indicating the high-level of the craft reached in the Tang Dynasty. Tang San Cai is primaryly divided into pottery tomb-figures and daily commodities.

After the founding of new China, specialized institutions have been set up to study the technics of making Tang San Cai, which has boosted the development of the craft.

Rich Artistic Connotation & Historical Background:

This is a Tang Dynasty tri-coloured glazed horse statue in Chinese classical style, depicting a scene of a woman riding a horse.

The Tang tri-coloured glazed pottery is one of the representative art forms of ancient Chinese ceramics, renowned for its rich colours and exquisite craftsmanship.

This horse statue adopts the production techniques of Tang tri-coloured glazed pottery, vividly presenting the image of the horse to the audience.

The patterns and decorative details on the horse are very delicate, showcasing the superb level of Tang Dynasty ceramics art.

In addition, the posture of the woman riding the horse in the statue is also very graceful, giving people a sense of lightness and freedom.

This artwork not only has ornamental value but also carries rich historical and cultural connotations, allowing people to feel the charm and uniqueness of Tang Dynasty culture.

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