TANG DYNASTY (618-907)

Stylistically the present figure closely relates to a larger (81.3 cm.) limestone Buddha from Shaanxi province, with inscription dating to 639, illustrated by O. Sirén, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century, vol. 2, Bangkok, 1998 ed., pl. 365. On both examples the Buddhas are clad in simple robes exposing the chest and are seated in padmasana on similarly draped pedestals with right hands in abahya mudra. Both figures also share in common a broad face with crisply rendered features beneath the tight whorls of hair and pronounced usnisa.

Also compare a similar, though smaller (35 cm.) Tang dynasty marble figure of Buddha posed in similar fashion on a draped pedestal base, illustrated in Zui Tou no Bijutsu, Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 1976, p. 44, no. 3-42.