Chinese Famille Verte Standing Figure & Horse
6 1/2 inches high, 6 1/4 inches long (nose to tail), the base 4 1/8 inches x 2 3/4 inches.
Kangxi 1662-1722

A Chinese famille verte biscuit group with a standing, smiling figure wearing a green jacket tied at the waist with black pantaloons, white socks, black shoes and a hat, holding the reins of his white piebald male horse, with dark brown glazed mane and tail, the fully trapped standing horse with saddle and cloth surmounted by an ovoid vessel beside a seated monkey, pair of boots, and a tied musical instrument opposite a tied cloth with two large rectangular plaques, the lose replacement ears made to go in either direction, the horse wearing an aubergine glazed nose band, the trappings modelled with suspended bells with tied hair at his chest, all on a rectangular pedestal base pierced on the front with green ground, the other three sides splashed with three colours and incised on the three edges.

• Formerly in a European private collection.
• Another of this exact model is illustrated by Anthony du Boulay in Chinese Porcelain Pleasures and Treasures, 1963, no.71, p.78, where the author mentions that 'figures of horses with attendant figures or riders are very popular and rare.'
• Two groups of figures on horses with bases of identical type and figures with the same hat are illustrated by William R. Sargent in The Copeland Collection, Chinese and Japanese Ceramics, The Peabody Museum of Salem, 1991, no.18, p.58-61.
• A slightly later example, probably dating to the end of Kangxi or beginning or Yongzheng, erroneously dated to the Ming period, is illustrated by Gorer in The Catalogue of the Collection of Old Chinese Porcelains Formed by Richard Bennett, Esq, Thornby Hall, Northampton, no.225.
• Included by S. Marchant & Son in their Recent Acquisitions 2007 catalogue, no. 32, p. 60/61.