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Lot Essay
This youthful and princely depiction of a Bodhisattva, with long flowing hair, pearl earrings, necklace, armbands, and very elegantly draped robes, points to an identification as Siddhartha, cf. H. Ingholt, Gandharan Art in Pakistan, 1957, p. 131f.
The torso is particularly sensitively executed with very finely observed modeling and revealing the sash of the dhoti at the waistline.
Given the layered structure of the sedimentary schist stone and the difficulty of obtaining large blocks, it is quite common in the context of Gandharan sculpture to find protruding sculptural elements such as the raised right hand to be separately carved and attached with iron brackets recessed in notches. In the present example, part of the halo was similarly attached. As it may be assumed that sculptures were then covered in gesso and polychromed, joints would thus be concealed; for a further example, with the halo also originally joined and similarly modeled torso, in the Royal Ontario Museum, see I. Kurita, Gandharan Art, 2003, vol. II, cat. no. 16.
The torso is particularly sensitively executed with very finely observed modeling and revealing the sash of the dhoti at the waistline.
Given the layered structure of the sedimentary schist stone and the difficulty of obtaining large blocks, it is quite common in the context of Gandharan sculpture to find protruding sculptural elements such as the raised right hand to be separately carved and attached with iron brackets recessed in notches. In the present example, part of the halo was similarly attached. As it may be assumed that sculptures were then covered in gesso and polychromed, joints would thus be concealed; for a further example, with the halo also originally joined and similarly modeled torso, in the Royal Ontario Museum, see I. Kurita, Gandharan Art, 2003, vol. II, cat. no. 16.