A LIMESTONE FRAGMENTARY RELIEF OF A BODHISATTVA TANG DYNASTY

truncated at the neck, the head depicted turned to one side, finely rendered with full cheeks and a sensuous mouth below delicate arched brows, with large downcast eyes imparting an expression of serenity and contentment, the pleasant proportions of the face framed by a long pendulous earlobe and thick hair gathered into a topknot falling in cascades to one side, the grey stone with faint buff coloured inclusions, mounted wood stand 

A private French collection, acquired in the early 20th century.

Finely carved with a full fleshy face, arched brows which form a harmonious curve with the ridge of the nose, and an elaborate coiffeur with hair drawn back into a high chignon, this charming relief represents the classic style of the bodhisattva image in the Tang dynasty. Sculptures with related features are particularly well known from the Longmen caves, south of Luoyang in Henan province, whose construction began in the Northern Wei dynasty and continued through the Northern Qi period, and the Tang dynasty, when the building of new temples was revived under the Tang emperor Gaozong (650-583). Sculptures from these temples represent a fully matured style, when the Buddha, bodhisattva and monks were rendered in a distinctly Chinese manner.

The three-quarter pose of this piece suggests it may have originally flanked a larger figure of Buddha, as seen on a number of votive stele, such as two from the Hayasaki collection, both inscribed with a cyclical date corresponding to AD 703, illustrated in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, New York, 1970, vol. 2, pls. 396 a and b, together with a further two stele, also from the Hayasaki collection, pls. 394 a and b. Compare also a free-standing head of a bodhisattva carved with related facial features, originally from the Huoding Cave, and now in the collection of C.K. Chan, illustrated in Longmen liusan diaoxiang ji [Lost Statues of Longmen Cave], Shanghai, 1993, pl. 79; and a smaller head sold in our London rooms, 17th December 1996, lot 175.