Male Funerary Figure (China, Ming Dynasty)Hollow earthenware figure is painted with colored pigments. He wears a full robe in green and yellow lead glaze and features a tradional headdress. Figure bears a lidded box. He stands on an octagonal base and measures 16 inches tall.Condition: Condition appropriate to age and use. Some surface dirt due to burial, paint loss. Old Chinese repair to neck. PROVENANCE: From a Charleston, SC and Paris, France private collection. Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term also encompasses cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains; and communal memorials to the dead (such as war memorials), which may or may not contain human remains.Funerary art may serve many cultural functions. It can play a role in burial rites, serve as an article for use by the dead in the afterlife, and celebrate the life and accomplishments of the dead, whether as part of kinship-centered practices of ancestor veneration or as a publicly directed dynastic display. It can also function as a reminder of the mortality of humankind, as an expression of cultural values and roles, and help to propitiate the spirits of the dead, maintaining their benevolence and preventing their unwelcome intrusion into the affairs of the living. 4.5x4.5x16. 3 pdsMale Funerary Figure (China, Ming Dynasty)Hollow earthenware figure is painted with colored pigments. He wears a full robe in green and yellow lead glaze and features a tradional headdress. Figure bears a lidded box. He stands on an octagonal base and measures 16 inches tall.Condition: Condition appropriate to age and use. Some surface dirt due to burial, paint loss. Old Chinese repair to neck. PROVENANCE: From a Charleston, SC and Paris, France private collection. Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. The term also encompasses cenotaphs ("empty tombs"), tomb-like monuments which do not contain human remains; and communal memorials to the dead (such as war memorials), which may or may not contain human remains.Funerary art may serve many cultural functions. It can play a role in burial rites, serve as an article for use by the dead in the afterlife, and celebrate the life and accomplishments of the dead, whether as part of kinship-centered practices of ancestor veneration or as a publicly directed dynastic display. It can also function as a reminder of the mortality of humankind, as an expression of cultural values and roles, and help to propitiate the spirits of the dead, maintaining their benevolence and preventing their unwelcome intrusion into the affairs of the living. 4.5x4.5x16. 3 pds