Chinese (Tang dynasty) Tomb Retinue: Earth Spirits About A.D. 725 Glazed white clay 37-1/2 inches high The Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund 49.1.9,10

These fantastic creatures belong to a group of ten ceramic figures that were buried in an elaborate tomb during the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906), a time of relative peace and prosperity in China. Military control expanded over central Asia, making China the major power between the Yellow Sea and Persia. People, trade goods, and ideas flowed across the Silk Road, a five-thousand-mile network of caravan and sea routes that stretched between lively cosmopolitan cities from Luoyang, on the Yellow River, to Rome. The great capital at Chang'an (chahng-ahn) had nearly two million taxable residents by the eighth century, including a sizable foreign population chiefly made up of envoys, clerics, and merchants from the west and north. Under this strong and prosperous empire, the art of China flourished. The earth spirits, like most Tang ceramics, display the vitality, cosmopolitanism, and technical advances that characterized this period.

Little is known about the individual artists who made the earth spirits. The manufacture of Tang ceramics was a vital industry consisting of large workshops. However, the earth spirits were clearly made by artists of the highest technical and artistic skill.

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