Central Asian Caravan Woman Rousing her Camel While Nursing

Homely details captured as an instant in motion give this burial sculpture vividness and charm. Particulars of costume and face indicate that she is Turkic, not Chinese. In the caravan world, her role was to care for the family.The intensity of concern of her facial expression is matched by the truculent dismay of the came, registered in the reared head, startled wide eyes, screaming mouth, and straining neck. A cord once ran from her upraised right hand to the camel's nose. Projecting front and back from under the saddle blanket are the hinged ends of a yurt frame over which would have been draped panels of felt, seen here rolled up between the yurt frame and the camel's side. Clay models such as this were only intended for burial to accompany the deceased in the afterworld.

Purchase: the Richard J. Stern Foundation for the Arts--Commerce Bank, Trustee, and Hall Family Foundation Endowment for the Oriental Department