Varenov A.V.   Pan T.A.  

On the Using of Medieval Chinese Pictures in Archaelolgical-Ethnographical Reconstructions (To the Attribution of “Nomads” Painting from the Gugong Museum in Beijing)

Reporter: Varenov A.V.

The authors note that the attribution and dating of Medieval Chinese paintings used in archaeological-ethnographical reconstructions is not reliable enough. The objective of this article was to check the reliability of the attribution of the medieval Chinese painting “Fanqi tu” (“Nomads”) to Hu Huan (Hu Huai), an artist living at the end of IX – beginning of the X century. The study used hair-styles of saddle-horses’ tails as the ethno-chronological marker which has never been used before by anyone in this way. As the evidence of Qidan (Khidan) attribution of the personages depicted, this study picked out the lacing of the tails of their saddle-horses in the middle. The tails of saddle-horses of Zhurzhen (Jin) and Southern Song peoples were the same: a tight knot with two hanging locks. It would seem that long loose flowing tails were primarily used by Mongolian-time saddle-horses. The analysis showed that “Fanqi tu” can not be among the works of Hu Huan. Therefore, the “Fanqi tu” painting must be dated to the middle – second half of the XIII century.