Glazed earthenware with pigments
Height 37 cm, excavated, from the tomb (dated. 664) of Zheng Rental, Liquan, Shaanxi Province, 1971

Wth a pull of her left hand, this elegant horsewoman restrains a spotted horse with fiery red mane and red hooves to match. The figure was sculpted and then glazed except for the face, which is painted.

She wears either a dress or a shirt tucked to a skirt with vertical yellow and white stripes. The figure sports a fashionable black hat that shows to advantage her face below.

Prior to the Tang dynasty, figures of women riding horses were virtually unknown. Images from the Tang show that women rode horses seated in saddlesand wearing full skirts, not sidesaddle as in the European style but with the feet inside stirrups. Sometimes they rode with children propped up in front.

During the Sui dynasty (581-619), the mili 𮳾X (a body-long veil designed to block the stranger's gaze, became popular for ladies of the imperial and ducal house-holds who rode horses on public roads.

The new wide-brimmed hat with shoulder-length veil was known as weimao ƱcU. By the 650s, however, the weimao had become popular that edictsXone in the 65os and another in 671Xto enforce the wearing the more modest mili were almost completely ignored. The hat worn by the lady rider from the tomb of Zheng Rent, is more radical still. A daring variation of the weimao, it is worn without any veil.