Footnotes

A SCHIST HEAD OF BUDDHA
ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD/4TH CENTURY

犍陀羅 三/四世紀 片岩佛首

Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s

Of a commanding scale and superb condition, this head of Buddha is a consummate example of the synthesis of Buddhist concepts and Greco-Roman aesthetics that flourished in the ancient region of Gandhara.

More commonly found on images of bodhisattvas, a mustache is present in a rarer group of Gandharan Buddha images, including one in the British Museum and another in the Peshawar Museum (see Zwalf, A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum, Vol. II, London, 1996, pp. 9 & 32, nos. 2 & 39; and Kurita, Gandharan Art, Vol. I, 1988, p. 81, no. 206; respectively).

Buddha's locks radiate in natural waves and transition into columns of ringlets over the dome of his ushnisha. A similar arrangement is seen in a smaller head of Buddha preserved at the Lahore Museum (G-174), as well as a standing Buddha at the Penn Museum, Philadelphia (29-68-1). Close examples are held in the British Museum (Zwalf, op. cit., pp. 9, 10, & 32, nos. 1, 3, & 39). Also compare another renowned example sold at Christie's, New York, 19 March 2013, lot 201.

The size, well-preserved condition, and the beautiful, polished dark stone of this remarkable head places it amongst the most important examples held in private hands. With the Rockefeller head at the Asia Society Museum, New York, measuring 37 cm, the British Museum head at 38 cm, and another large head formerly in the Willard Clark Collection (Bonhams, New York, 19 March 2018, lot 3078) at 47.3 cm, the present lot is one of the largest known (Proser, The Buddhist Heritage of Pakistan, 2011, p. 151, no. 59; and Zwalf, op cit., p. 32, no. 39; respectively).