An outstanding and large limestone figure of a Bodhisattva China, Northern Qi / Sui Dynasty, late 6th century

the slender figure truncated at the arms and standing upright upon a conical base while finely modeled in the round, the flattened contours of the loose robes shaped around the body in flattened folds, parting open slightly in pleats at the back and progressing in ascending folds above the feet, the robes falling open at the chest to reveal the diagonal under-tunic secured at the waist with a small knot, the shoulders draped with loose scarves intersecting in a further knot at the waist before looping over the thighs, richly adorned with a flat pectoral of pearls and panels enclosing cabochons with a central pendent trefoil, and ropes of jewels composed of cabochons, pieces of coral, crescent axe-heads and beaded citrons, intersecting at the front and back through a large roundel set with a further chain falling to a lion-mask and tri-partite ribbon, the oval face with serene expression, the slender bow-shaped eyes with rounded lids above a softly smiling mouth with full lips, the finely shaped broad brow framed by a foliate tiara carved with bosses with projecting tassels and the traces of the lotus base for a Buddha above swirling combed waves and further lotus on the central crown panel, with ample traces of red and ochre pigments

Sotheby's London, 2nd December 1997, lot 25.

 

The traces of a lotus base in the crown, probably supporting a central image of the Buddha Amitabha, would strongly suggest an identification of the present figure with a major figure of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. As the figure is carved in the round, it would probably have originally been free-standing and been an object of devotion in its own right, or as a flanking component of a massive and highly important free-standing Buddhist triad.

Two figures carved in similar style, but probably of a slightly later date, are illustrated in Matsubara Saburo, Chugoko Bukkyo Chokoku Shiron,Tokyo, 1995, vol.2, pls.559-560 in the Cleveland Museum of Art, and pls.561-562 in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge. The proportions of the features and the stylistic elements of the crown are closely related to a larger Northern Qi dynasty limestone head, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated Hai-Wai Yi-Chen. Chinese Art in Overseas Collections. Buddhist Sculpture I, Taipei, 1986, pl.59.

Compare also a related torso discovered at Jinyuancheng, Taiyuan in Shanxi province, illustrated in Sui To no Bijutsu, Tokyo, 1978, p.218, fig.96; and another, perhaps of slightly earlier date, from the Longxing Temple at Qingzhou in Shandong province, published in Qingzhou Longxingsi fojiao zaoxiang yishu, Ji'nan, 1999, pl.174. The detailing of the jewelry incorporate leonine monster masks, kirttimukha, as well as coral pieces, evoke the trading routes of the Silk Road, and the particular detailing of the necklace, with rounded bosses with studded 'pearl' borders within squared panels, appears to be derived from the kingly adornments on Gandharan bodhisattva figures, via Central Asia. For example, see Isao Kurita, Gandharan Art, Vol.II. The World of the Buddha, Tokyo, 2003, pls.142, 158, 164, and 167.