Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220)
Date:
c. 200
Medium:
Earthenware with unfired pigments over slip
Size:
Depth: 5″
Width: 5 3/4″
Height: 8″
Troupes of acrobats, dancers, jugglers, and musicians traveled the countryside at the time this object was made to entertain wealthy rural estates. The energetic, young contortionists on this vessel seem frozen in action, like the best Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) clay mortuary figures. The girls, identifiable by their hairstyle, might represent immortals making merry at the court of the Daoist Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu). As a cult of immortality spread widely during the 2nd century, some tombs contained images of Daoist deities and inhabitants of the afterlife. The Queen Mother of the West and the immortals in her paradise often engaged in human activities and were popular figures in tomb decoration and furnishings of the period.

Julius Levy Memorial Fund BMA 1988.2

A Conversation BMA Conservator Christine Downie

Transcript

Aaron Henkin] I talked with Christine Downie Walden, a BMA objects conservator, about this piece. It dates to the year 200, but until the 1980s, they didn’t know how old it actually was. [Christine Downie] Well, they decided that back in 1988 they would do some thermal luminescence testing on it, or for short TL testing, to establish how old this piece was. When you do TL testing, you take a tiny drill, drill into the object in a discreet spot, and collect the powder. So they sampled in two spots because
they wanted to see if the acrobat and the pot portion had been fired at the same time. Results came through
and they were fired at similar time. [Aaron Henkin] So I wonder which of those two acrobats they drilled into to get the sample.
[Christine Downie] In the TL report, they referred to them as red pants and pink pants. They did the sampling between the legs of red pants. Of course, being an object conservator and the one that will be filling that hole and doing in-painting on it, I hope you don’t see it.