A limestone relief fragment of a Buddhist triad stele, Northern Wei dynasty | 北魏　石灰石雕三尊像龕

Collection of Sakamoto Gorō (1923-2016), acquired between the 1950s and 1960s. 

Sotheby's Hong Kong, 7th October 2013, lot 123.

The present Buddhist triad stele is a fine example of Northern Wei period carving, when a new genre of Buddhist devotional sculpture arose in the form of stelae with carved images known in Chinese as zaoxiangbei. Stelae of this type are generally made of local stone and inscribed with a date, the donor's name, and a message of intention or purpose. This stele is related to one from Shandong province and later in the von der Heydt collection, The Hague, illustrated in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, vol. 1, New York, 1970, pl. 164, carved in a similar simple but fine style with an attractive arabesque motif around the mandorla as seen here. Compare also a stele in the Nezu Museum, Tokyo, published in Matsubara Saburō, Chūgoku bukkyō chōkoku shiron / Chinese Buddhist Sculpture, vol. 1, Tokyo, 1995, pl. 114b, together with another related stele in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, ibid., pl. 207.

來源

坂本五郎（1923-2016年）收藏，入藏於1950至1960年代間

香港蘇富比2013年10月7日，編號123