Live Auction 2866The Decorative Arts Sale
A pair of Chinese export polychrome-painted clay 'nodding head' figures
Lot 428 THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN 

A pair of Chinese export polychrome-painted clay 'nodding head' figures

LATE 18TH EARLY 19TH CENTURY

Closed22 June 2011

Price Realised

EUR 58,600

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A pair of Chinese export polychrome-painted clay 'nodding head' figures
Late 18th early 19th Century
The finely modelled elderly couple each with painted detachable clay heads weighted with lead to nod, arms in a raised position, wearing elaborately decorated traditional Chinese robes of varying colours and with various floral motifs, the lady holding a handkerchief in her fixed left hand and wearing earrings and headdress, her hair drawn up in a tall loop, the gentleman with natural hair sideburns, moustache and beard and a black hat, damages
36.5 cm. high
Together with a black and white photograph showing one of the figures in the study of the previous owner (3)

Specialist note

As early as the first quarter of the 18th Century unfired clay figures were made for the export trade. The earliest tended to be specific portrait pieces, such as the figure of a merchant by Amoy Chinqua in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts. C. Crossman, The China Trade, 1991, pp. 307 - 321 illustrates this and other figures and discusses the genre, noting that most were made in the period 1780 to 1810.

For a similar but larger group of four nodding head figures, see Christies' London, 19 November 2010, lot 615.