
Mark Rasmussen
International Director
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Sold for US$4,825 inc. premium
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International Director

Head of Sale, Specialist
犍陀羅 二/三世紀 片岩訶梨帝母石碑
Hariti, a reformed ogress propitiated for successful child-rearing, was the principal female Buddhist deity of ancient Gandhara, also popular throughout Central Asia and China. A 7th-century account indicates that sculptures of her were commonly installed near Gandharan monastic dining halls (Takakusu (trans.), Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago, Oxford, 1896). Another small-scale stele of Hariti with her children is in the Peshawar University Museum (Luczanits, Gandhara: Das Buddhistische erbe Pakistans, Mainz, 2008, p.156, no.105). The present sculpture's distinctive dark schist color has a regional association with monuments at the epicenter of Gandharan civilization such as Takht-Bahi and Sahri-Bahlol (cf., ibid., pp.154-5, nos.102 & 104, and pp.244-5, abbs.3 & 5).
Provenance
Estate of Maude O. Davis, Princeton, NJ
Sotheby's, New York, 23 March 1995, lot 32
The Estate of Benjamin M. Rice II, New York