A RARE WELL-CARVED GREY STONE TORSO OF A BODHISATTVA

TANG DYNASTY, EARLY 8TH CENTURY

细节

A RARE WELL-CARVED GREY STONE TORSO OF A BODHISATTVA
Tang Dynasty, Early 8th Century
The slender, elegant figure well carved standing in a subtle tribhanga pose atop a lotus base, wearing a clinging diaphanous skirt falling in graceful folds to the base in back and to the tops of the bare feet in front, with scarves tied diagonally around the torso and draped from the shoulders to fall loosely across the hips, over the left arm and below the knees, the simple necklace encircling the neck hung with foliate pendants and the arm bands carved with lozenges and florettes
25in. (63.5cm.) high, wood base

来源

Stevenson Burke Collection, Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, 8 May 1980, lot 77

拍品专文

The 5th century Gupta influence on Tang Buddhist sculpture is manifest in the sensuously rounded body of the present lot, together with the diaphanous robes and jewelery.

Stylistically, this figure relates most closely to some of the Tianlongshan figures, although the stone itself appears to differ slightly. Compare the larger sandstone figure, once part of a triad that occupied the East Wall of Cave XXI at Tianlongshan, now in the Avery Brundage Collection and illustrated by Ren-Yvon Lefebvre d'Argenc in Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture, Japan, 1974, pp. 218-219, no. 108. The Avery Brundage figure is very similar to the present lot in the drapery of the scarves and the U-shape folds of the skirt on the upper thighs, but has more of a sway to its tribhanga position. Refer, also, to the related sandstone figure of a bodhisattva from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections previously sold in these rooms, 1 December 1994, lot 160.

For a related figure in white marble with more elaborate realization of the drapery and with one foot placed slightly forward, see the figure from Longyenshan, Hebei, illustrated by W. Willetts, Foundations of Chinese Art, London, 1965, p. 222, fig. 139.