NORTHERN WEI DYNASTY (386-534), LONGMEN CAVES

A nearly identical, though larger (45 cm.) limestone figure of Maitreya, also seated cross-legged and flanked by two lions, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated by M. Hearn in Ancient Chinese Art. The Ernest Erickson Collection, New York, 1987, p. 86, no. 132, where it is dated to the Northern Wei dynasty. The author notes that similar figures of Maitreya flanked by lions are found in the Guyang caves at Longmen, which were decorated during the reigns of the Northern Wei rulers of the late 5th and early 6th centuries.