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Lot Essay
The figure is shown seated in dhyanasana with the left hand resting on the knee, in the 'earth touching' gesture, the right hand raised, wearing heavily draped robes off the right shoulder revealing the fleshy chest, the hem falling in neat folds, the face carved with full features and beatific expression, the hair is rendered in rhythmic wave-like strands rising to a prominent ushnisha.
For two Tang-dynasty stone seated figures of Buddha carved in a similar style, compare a sandstone example in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, accession no. F85-11, acquired at Sotheby’s New York, 3 June 1985, lot 8; and a marble example in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, accession no. M.2007.111 (fig. 1), illustrated by William Watson, Art of Dynastic China, London, 1981, no. 80.
The present figure is illustrated in Jin Shen, Zhongguo Lidai Jinian Foxiang Tudian, Beijing, 1995, p. 367, no. 278, and is dated therein to the third year of the Kaiyuan period of the Tang dynasty.
For two Tang-dynasty stone seated figures of Buddha carved in a similar style, compare a sandstone example in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, accession no. F85-11, acquired at Sotheby’s New York, 3 June 1985, lot 8; and a marble example in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, accession no. M.2007.111 (fig. 1), illustrated by William Watson, Art of Dynastic China, London, 1981, no. 80.
The present figure is illustrated in Jin Shen, Zhongguo Lidai Jinian Foxiang Tudian, Beijing, 1995, p. 367, no. 278, and is dated therein to the third year of the Kaiyuan period of the Tang dynasty.