Han Female Dancer Sculpture

The Museum’s collection houses a ceramic figure of a female dancer from the Western Han period, which is made of earthenware accented with pigment. A quintessential example of early Chinese sculpture, this beautiful figure illustrates the artist’s achievement in conveying a sense of motion in a still object. The sculptor imbued the dancer with life force by capturing a tension-filled instant in her movement when she throws one sleeve back, gently stoops, and flexes her knees. Based on this evocative work, our expressive reproduction was created with a combination of three-dimensional imaging and traditional sculpture techniques.