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Lot Essay
A similar treatment and patterning of the robes, jewelrey and other ornamentatation can be found on a stone scultpure of a bodhisattva flanked by two acolytes, dated by inscription to 583, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by S. Matsubara, Chuugoku bukkyo chokokushi ron (The Path of Chinese Buddhist Sculpture), vol. 2, Later Six Dynasties and Sui, Tokyo, 1955, no. 522. Like the present figure, the Metropolitan bodhisattva wears long looped necklaces, scarves drawn through a ring at the waist, and a long skirt gathered just above the waist that falls in crisp overlapping folds. Other stone sculptures of bodhisattva dated to the late 6th century with similar jewerly and drapery are in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, and are illustrated ibid., no. 579a and b, respectively. The rather angular face of the present figure is somewhat similar to that of a a white marble bodhisattva dated the late 6th century wearing more simplified drapery in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated, ibid., pl. 535. See, also, the sandstone figure of a bodhisattva dated to the Sui dynasty also wearing similar jewelry and drapery sold at Sotheby's, London, 2 December 1997, lot 24.
The large disks set atop each shoulder of the present figure can also be found on a large figure of a bodhisattva dated to the Northern Wei period in the Binyin Dong cave at Longmen, Henan province, part of which is illustrated by O. Siren, Chinese Sculpture, vol. 1, 1998 ed., pl. 90.
The large disks set atop each shoulder of the present figure can also be found on a large figure of a bodhisattva dated to the Northern Wei period in the Binyin Dong cave at Longmen, Henan province, part of which is illustrated by O. Siren, Chinese Sculpture, vol. 1, 1998 ed., pl. 90.