An important and rare carved limestone head of Buddha China, Tang Dynasty, 7th / 8th Century, Longmen Caves

carved from grey oolithic limestone in full rounded volumes, the oval face with slender bow-shaped eyes with bulging eyelids below evenly arching brows issuing from the broad nose, with a small bud mouth of full lips with lightly incised trim above a broad double-chin and traces of a thick rounded neck, all below the hair and domed ushnisha indicated in rounded lobes radiating from a pyramid of three triple-armed whorls, the surface of the hair animated with incised combed lines and rhythmic waves, beneath ample traces of a whitish pigment ground (stand)

Collection of R. Staechelin, Berlin (1920s)
Private Collection, Bern (1940s)
Spink & Son, Ltd.
Collection of Oscar Blum Gentilomo, Lugano, acquired from the above in the 1950s.
thence by descent to the present owner, from 1972

Ausstellung chinesischer Kunst, Gesellschaft für Ostasiatische Kunst und Preußische Akademie der Künste, Berlin, 1929, cat.no.293.

Asiatische Kunst aus Schweizer Sammlungen, Bern, 1941, cat.no.168.

Compare two Buddha heads in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, attributed to the Longmen Caves outside of Luoyang in Henan province, illustrated in Ren?Yvon Lefebvre d'Argenc? Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection, San Francisco, 1974, pls.104 and 106. Related stone heads from Longmen are also recorded in Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji, Shanghai, 1993, pls.56, 57, 64, and particularly 66. A standing figure of the Buddha with similar facial features and hairdo, removed from the Caves, but on display at Longshan, is published in Zhongguo meishu quanji: Diaosu bian, vol.11, Shanghai, 1988, pl.192.

The present head is an outstanding example of a very rare series of fragmentary sculptures attributable to the Leigutai complex in the Longmen Caves, and is particularly notable for its well documented provenance through the 20th century. Note another similar head exhibited together with the present example during the famous Berlin exhibition Ausstellung Chinesischer Kunst, 1929, cat.no.294. All the preceding examples appear to bear traces of a ground layer for pigments, particularly surviving the crevices of the hair, as well as the unusual, and possibly characteristic, stepped chisel-marks around the hairline.