Although a number of comparable examples of this model exist, none seems to be quite as magnificent as this particular specimen. Usually one leg of these figures is raised slightly on the head of a bull or body of a demon, and bent at the knee. The present figure, however, stands with slightly splayed legs on a level footing. This gives to the whole figure a more dramatic contraposto sway than is usual. The finely undercut details to the face, the raised, knotted eyebrows, widely flaring nostrils and pinched mouth, together with the broad shoulders, tightly flexed muscular arms and the sweeping tail of the figure's robes on the reverse add an immense drama to what are usually rather static renditions

For examples illustrating the development of these figures, both sculptural and painted, in the Dunhuang Cave complex, see Zhongguo Shiku, Dunhuang Mogao Ku, Beijing, 1987, vols. 1-5. For early Tang examples of lokapala standing on muscular demons painted on the eastern wall of cave 380, one with blue breastplates, see op. cit., vol. 2, figs. 190-191; and for free-standing sculptural examples dated to the High Tang, more similar in pose and dramatic content, from the western walls of caves 45 and 113, see op. cit., vol. 3, figs. 127 and 143, respectively

The painted floral decoration on the back of the robes can be compared to that on a detail from a robe of a late Tang Buddhist figure from cave 196, op. cit., vol. 4, fig. 183. For three less dramatic, though comparable figures, see Cina a Venezia, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1986, Catalogue, no. 88; one in the exhibition, Tang, Eskenazi, London, June-July, 1987, Catalogue, no. 27; and another sold in these rooms June 2, 1989, lot 133

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 666x57 is consistent with the dating of this lot