- Joined
- Mar 24, 2022
- Messages
- 270
My Little Pony's are not the first mass produced, collectible horse figurines from China.
There's what I'm calling Gen0: Tang Dynasty horse sculptures.
Some of you have voiced curiosity as to why the creators of My Little Pony first decided upon the Collector's pose to start out the brand, but when you become familiar with Gen0 you can immediately spot the same pose among these ceramic statues.
Here's their history:
The Ancient Chinese of the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BCE) had the religious belief that a king or lord would be accompanied in the afterlife if people and animals were buried with them. Rather than actually kill people and horses, in 210 BCE, a law was passed allowing for ceramic representations to be made in their stead. This started the tradition of making statues for lords, of their particular horses, to be used as grave goods.
As trade stretched west along the Silk Road, into the horse-breeding centres of the Steppes, better horses, the Bactarian horses, came back to China in the Han Dynasty, where they became crucial to military success. The horse became enshrined in Chinese culture at this time, and included in their zodiac. By the Tang Dynasty, (618 - 907 CE), Chinese horse culture came to its peak, and so did its horse sculptures.
These sculptures were made using a clay coil technique that was packed against plaster moulds. They were mass-produced this way, where different heads and bodies could be matched together according to specifications, and the features of particular horses could be sculpted on prior to firing.
The best Tang Dynasty horse sculptures have expressive faces and eyes, with open mouths. Most have tense postures to look like they've just come to a sharp halt or are about to rear, with their back legs up underneath them, much like the Collector's Pose.
They could be fired terracotta that was then painted or set with gold leaf, or they could have ceramic glazes. A distinctive Tang Dynasty style of dripping glazes in brilliant colours that blended together gave the look of a sweating horse. They came in greens and blues, reds and not just caramel, black and white.
These are saught-after collectable items. While researching this topic I looked at auction houses who were selling some certified items for something like six figures. They've had about 1500 years to appreciate compared to our ponies!
There are different poses and sculpting techniques of Tang Dynasty horses from different parts of China, that represented different workshops and their regional styles, and much like our series of different styles of ponies, collectors follow them.
And, since quite a number of Tang Dynasty horse sculptures survive, chances are a museum near you might have at least one example of Tang Dynasty sculpture. Here's one in the Cincinnati Museum of Art that recently underwent restoration, with its curator. It shows the scale of these statues.
I hope it was at least a little interesting and that through it you can appreciate the collector's pose better, or at least the long tradition of horse collectables.
I swear I am not a chatGPT, just an art history nerd, and Chinese history fan, so this was totally my pleasure.
There's what I'm calling Gen0: Tang Dynasty horse sculptures.
Some of you have voiced curiosity as to why the creators of My Little Pony first decided upon the Collector's pose to start out the brand, but when you become familiar with Gen0 you can immediately spot the same pose among these ceramic statues.
Here's their history:
The Ancient Chinese of the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BCE) had the religious belief that a king or lord would be accompanied in the afterlife if people and animals were buried with them. Rather than actually kill people and horses, in 210 BCE, a law was passed allowing for ceramic representations to be made in their stead. This started the tradition of making statues for lords, of their particular horses, to be used as grave goods.
As trade stretched west along the Silk Road, into the horse-breeding centres of the Steppes, better horses, the Bactarian horses, came back to China in the Han Dynasty, where they became crucial to military success. The horse became enshrined in Chinese culture at this time, and included in their zodiac. By the Tang Dynasty, (618 - 907 CE), Chinese horse culture came to its peak, and so did its horse sculptures.
These sculptures were made using a clay coil technique that was packed against plaster moulds. They were mass-produced this way, where different heads and bodies could be matched together according to specifications, and the features of particular horses could be sculpted on prior to firing.
The best Tang Dynasty horse sculptures have expressive faces and eyes, with open mouths. Most have tense postures to look like they've just come to a sharp halt or are about to rear, with their back legs up underneath them, much like the Collector's Pose.
They could be fired terracotta that was then painted or set with gold leaf, or they could have ceramic glazes. A distinctive Tang Dynasty style of dripping glazes in brilliant colours that blended together gave the look of a sweating horse. They came in greens and blues, reds and not just caramel, black and white.
These are saught-after collectable items. While researching this topic I looked at auction houses who were selling some certified items for something like six figures. They've had about 1500 years to appreciate compared to our ponies!
There are different poses and sculpting techniques of Tang Dynasty horses from different parts of China, that represented different workshops and their regional styles, and much like our series of different styles of ponies, collectors follow them.
And, since quite a number of Tang Dynasty horse sculptures survive, chances are a museum near you might have at least one example of Tang Dynasty sculpture. Here's one in the Cincinnati Museum of Art that recently underwent restoration, with its curator. It shows the scale of these statues.
I hope it was at least a little interesting and that through it you can appreciate the collector's pose better, or at least the long tradition of horse collectables.
I swear I am not a chatGPT, just an art history nerd, and Chinese history fan, so this was totally my pleasure.
Last edited:
