A large gray schist figure of Buddha with Five Ascetics, Ancient Region of Gandhara, 2nd - 3rd century

Japanese Private Collection.

Sotheby's New York, 1st April 2005, lot 16.

Isao Kurita, Gandharan Art: The Buddha's Life Story, vol. I, Tokyo, 2003, no. 441, p. 214

This large and majestically carved sculpture depicts the Buddha seated in a posture of meditation on a rocky ledge, one end of his pleated sanghati looped in his left hand and figures of seated and standing ascetics carved in deep relief beneath. scene probably illustrates the story of the sixteen brahmin ascetics who visited the Buddha while he was in the city of Sravasti and were so impressed by his teachings that they converted to Buddhism. The sculpture, now fragmentary, was probably part of a larger relief composition with more figures arranged around the central seated Buddha. The arrangement of the figures of the ascetics and the style of carving is closely related to another relief depicting the same scene in the Peshawar Museum, described as one of the 'best executed' surviving Gandharan sculptures; see Harald Ingholt, Gandharan Art in Pakistan, New York, 1957, pl. 106.

The figures of the ascetics carved in deep relief are remarkable for the degree of detail and realism in their execution. The style bears the direct imprint of late Roman artistic trends. The fashion for depicting exaggerated details in portraiture was a Hellenistic innovation and its effects are seen in this sculpture. Compare the gaunt frame and protruding ribs of the ascetic seated in the foreground with a bronze statue of a similarly emaciated seated man from the late Roman period in the Dumbarton Oaks, illustrated in Gisela Richter, Catalogue of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, Cambridge, 1956, pl. 14.