Lot 157
157
A WELL-CARVED WHITE MARBLE HEAD OF BUDDHA
A WELL-CARVED WHITE MARBLE HEAD OF BUDDHA

NORTHERN QI DYNASTY

Details
A WELL-CARVED WHITE MARBLE HEAD OF BUDDHA
Northern Qi Dynasty
The smooth, broad face finely carved with small sensitive mouth and rounded lowered eye lids below the graceful curve of the well-defined brows, the hair and rounded usnisa left smooth
10.5/8in. (27cm.) high, stand

Lot Essay

Compare the very similar, but slightly smaller head, included in the exhibition, Spirit and Ritual, The Morse Collection of Ancient Chinese Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982, Catalogue, no. 55 and also illustrated by Hugo Munsterberg, The Arts of China, 1972, p. 94 and pl. 43. A stele with a very similar head in the Shanxi Provincial Museum is illustrated by Saburo Matsubara, Chuugoku Bukkyo Chokukushi Ron (The Path of Chinese Buddhist Sculpture), Tokyo, 1995, vol. 3, no. 4176.