
Jing Wen
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Sold for €10,837.50 inc. premium
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Head of Sale, Specialist
A SCHIST HEAD OF A DONOR
ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, CIRCA 3RD/4TH CENTURY
犍陀羅 約三/四世紀 片岩供養人像
Provenance:
With Claude de Marteau, Brussels, by 1970s
This mature donor figure, with slightly hollow cheeks, sports a distinctive tonsure, which Ingholt suggests may indicate he is a foreigner to Gandhara (Ingholt, Gandharan Art in Pakistan, 1957, pp. 161-2). These mysterious Buddhist patrons are occasionally seen in Gandharan panels, such as one sold by Bonhams, New York, 23 July 2020, lot 816. Evidence of their representation in large, free-standing sculpture, as would have been the case for the present head, is provided by a statue of one such foreign donor offering a bouquet, which was discovered at the Sahri Bahlol archeological site and is now in the Peshawar Museum (Luczanits (ed.), Gandhara, 2008, p. 336, no. 248).