A RARE MASSIVE WHITE MARBLE HEAD OF BUDDHA

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

细节

A RARE MASSIVE WHITE MARBLE HEAD OF BUDDHA
NORTHERN QI/SUI DYNASTY

Sensitively carved, the full mouth and the pupils of the partially closed eyes showing traces of black pigment, the gently arched brows carved in shallow relief and the hair carved in tight rounded curls which bear remnants of pale blue pigment and become more cursory and then disappear into the rough area at the back of the head where it becomes more flattened in outline, with a shallow notch at the base of each well-defined ear, nose missing, minor restoration--17 1/2 in. (44.5cm.) high, stand

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Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, Bard College, Edith C. Blum Art Institute, A Connoisseur's Quest: Integrating New Discoveries into the Annals of Art History, 1990, brochure, illus.

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拍品专文

This larger than life-size head is very finely carved. The usnisa, or protuberance on the top of the head, that signifies the Buddha's superior wisdom is subtley rendered and the features delicately modeled, which are characteristic of sculpture of the Sui Dynasty. A group of Buddhist sculptures of marble and limestone discovered south of Zhucheng city, Shandong province, in 1988, included heads of similar type. See Kaogu 1990, no. 8, pl. III. A group of sculptures of the Northern Dynasties through Tang were also discovered in Quyangxian, Hebei. Sui examples of these, though smaller in scale, display similar characteristics. See Yang Boda, Uzumoreta Chugoku sekibutsu no kenkyu (Tokyo, 1985), pl. 47; also, Gugong bowuyuan yuankan, 1962, no. 2

Compare the lovely, but smaller, marble head of a Buddha in the Hoppenot Collection, Paris, illustrated by Daisy Lion-Goldschmidt, Chinese Art (New York, 1980), pl. 118 and another smaller head illustrated by Siren, Ars Asiatica, vol. VII, pl. LVI, no. 641