Tang 'Ponies'
A number of years ago I was contacted by a young woman who was seeking information on a pair of pottery horses given to her as a child by her grandfather - apparently they were given to him to clear a gambling bet while he was travelling in Madrid as a merchant seaman.
Having arranged an appointment for her, the young woman duly appeared at the reception desk and asked if I could help her to carry them in from the boot of her car, as they were rather large. The front hall was buzzing with several parties of schoolchildren as we carried in two large objects wrapped in newspaper.
As I started to unwrap them, I realised that, although they were in really bad condition, these were not just any old pottery horses. As I frantically tried to keep the schoolchildren from bumping into the table, I was able to tell her that the horses were grave goods from the Chinese Tang Dynasty - roughly 7th to 10th century AD.
The young woman was more than a little surprised - she couldn't believe that she had spent most of her childhood using a pair of Tang Dynasty works of art as ponies for her Barbie doll!
Kim Mawhinney, Curator of Applied Art, Ulster Museum