(20TH CENTURY), SIGNED HAKUREI SAKU (YOSHIDA HAKUREI; 1871-1942)

The artist has faithfully copied a famous grey schist Gandharan statue Siddhartha Fasting in the Lahore Museum, Pakistan (fig. 1). Prince Siddhartha, seeking enlightenment, practiced severe physical austerities and came to look like a living skeleton. On the base of the sculpture here, in relief, six monks worship at a fire altar, three on each side. The Japanese artist misidentified the iconography as Shakyamuni Returning from the Mountains.