Qian

— Based on their research we might venture to identify the wine-merchant in the Rietberg Museum as a member of one of the eastern Iranian city-states. He has an oval face, a pronounced hawk’s nose, deep-set, bulging eyes with bushy eyebrows separated by a deep vertical crease, and a broad mouth with fleshy lips. His facial features are reminiscent of those of one of the three envoys anxiously waiting to be greeted by Chinese court officials in the painting on the east wall toward the mortuary chambers in Li Hsien’s or Prince Chang-huai’s (A.D 654-684) tomb at the imperial cemetery in present Ch’ien County, Shensi Province.