Grey Pottery Dancing Figurine with Colored Embellishment

Excavated in Linzhuang Tan-dynasty Tomb of Chengdong town, Yangzhou city in 1977, this pottery dancer wearing a high “丫”-shaped chignon is in an elegant dancing pose though the two arms are missing. With a soft golden upper garment and a S-shaped shawl that is drooping from the shoulders to beneath the waist, the dancer wears a bright green high-waist shirt long enough to touch the ground, the hem of which rests on the curly tips of her soft-bottom embroidered shoes. Given her chubby face and slim body, this dancing figurine shows a perfect combination of the plumpness valued by the High Tang and the “slender waist” deemed as the representative feminine beauty by people living in Jiangnan of China, the area along the Yangtze River.