.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Very finely and crisply carved in relief, this exceptional Gandharan narrative panel is arranged in five registers beneath an elaborate double-arched gable. At the centre is the Dipankara scene, framed by episodes from the life of the Buddha and rendered with remarkable clarity and sculptural precision. The gable is richly ornamented with finely carved architectural elements, including beams supporting the arches, scrolling foliage and sawtooth borders terminating in bird-head finials. Additional bird-head finials suspend bunches of grapes from the lower arch. Beneath, attendant figures are grouped in pairs within multi-storeyed architectural settings supported by columns, each provided with a doorway below. The registers are separated by pilasters carved with floral sprays and drilled with four holes that originally concealed attachment pins. Minute traces of gilding survive across the surface, attesting to the panel’s original polychrome appearance.
Narrative reliefs of this type were commonly affixed to the drums and false gables of both large and small stupas, where they functioned as a visual storyboard to be read sequentially during ritual circumambulation.
The uppermost register illustrates the Offering of the Four Bowls. Following the Buddha’s seven-week meditation after Enlightenment, two merchants offered him food, but he possessed no bowl in which to receive it. The Four Heavenly Guardians (Lokapalas) each presented him with a golden bowl. As such luxury was deemed inappropriate, the Buddha transformed the vessels successively into less precious materials before finally combining them into a single stone bowl. The second register depicts the future Buddha Maitreya, shown reassuring devotees and flanked by worshippers. At the centre of the composition, the third register portrays the celebrated Dipankara episode. According to the legend, when the Buddha Dipankara announced his visit to a city, the king reserved all available flowers for offerings. The young ascetic Sumati was unable to obtain any until he encountered a girl carrying lotus blossoms, here shown standing in a doorway to the left. When Sumati cast the flowers before Dipankara, they miraculously remained suspended in the air around the Buddha’s head. Sumati then prostrated himself before Dipankara, who foretold his future enlightenment as Shakyamuni Buddha.
The fourth register illustrates Amrapali’s donation of the Mango Grove. Renowned for her beauty, generosity and piety, the courtesan Amrapali offered the grove to the Buddha and his community. She is depicted holding a water vessel associated with ritual purification and the formal act of donation, while the branches of the mango tree form a canopy above, attended by celestial figures.
The fifth and final register represents the Buddha preaching in the Trayastrimsa Heaven, where he expounded the doctrine to the gods. He is flanked by the deities Indra and Brahma, emphasising the universal reach of his teaching.
The present example ranks among the finest and most complete of its class. Not only does it preserve an unusually rich programme of iconography, but it also survives in an exceptionally rare state of preservation, retaining crisp carving, extensive architectural detail, and traces of original gilding. Few comparable panels remain so intact. In both condition and completeness, it compares favourably with example in the British Museum featured in Vladimir Zwalf, A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum, London, 1996, p. 152, no. 251 and the closets comparable example knowns are illustrated by Harald Ingholt in Gandharan Art in Pakistan, New York, 1957, cat. nos. 167–169. Also compare with the border panel of a false gable in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (13.96.33). With its sophisticated architectural framework, finely preserved figural carving, extensive narrative programme and surviving traces of gilding, this relief stands as an outstanding example of Gandharan sculptural art. Its rarity lies not only in the quality of execution but also in the remarkable completeness of the panel, qualities that distinguish from published examples and stands as the most important held in private hands.
Narrative reliefs of this type were commonly affixed to the drums and false gables of both large and small stupas, where they functioned as a visual storyboard to be read sequentially during ritual circumambulation.
The uppermost register illustrates the Offering of the Four Bowls. Following the Buddha’s seven-week meditation after Enlightenment, two merchants offered him food, but he possessed no bowl in which to receive it. The Four Heavenly Guardians (Lokapalas) each presented him with a golden bowl. As such luxury was deemed inappropriate, the Buddha transformed the vessels successively into less precious materials before finally combining them into a single stone bowl. The second register depicts the future Buddha Maitreya, shown reassuring devotees and flanked by worshippers. At the centre of the composition, the third register portrays the celebrated Dipankara episode. According to the legend, when the Buddha Dipankara announced his visit to a city, the king reserved all available flowers for offerings. The young ascetic Sumati was unable to obtain any until he encountered a girl carrying lotus blossoms, here shown standing in a doorway to the left. When Sumati cast the flowers before Dipankara, they miraculously remained suspended in the air around the Buddha’s head. Sumati then prostrated himself before Dipankara, who foretold his future enlightenment as Shakyamuni Buddha.
The fourth register illustrates Amrapali’s donation of the Mango Grove. Renowned for her beauty, generosity and piety, the courtesan Amrapali offered the grove to the Buddha and his community. She is depicted holding a water vessel associated with ritual purification and the formal act of donation, while the branches of the mango tree form a canopy above, attended by celestial figures.
The fifth and final register represents the Buddha preaching in the Trayastrimsa Heaven, where he expounded the doctrine to the gods. He is flanked by the deities Indra and Brahma, emphasising the universal reach of his teaching.
The present example ranks among the finest and most complete of its class. Not only does it preserve an unusually rich programme of iconography, but it also survives in an exceptionally rare state of preservation, retaining crisp carving, extensive architectural detail, and traces of original gilding. Few comparable panels remain so intact. In both condition and completeness, it compares favourably with example in the British Museum featured in Vladimir Zwalf, A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum, London, 1996, p. 152, no. 251 and the closets comparable example knowns are illustrated by Harald Ingholt in Gandharan Art in Pakistan, New York, 1957, cat. nos. 167–169. Also compare with the border panel of a false gable in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (13.96.33). With its sophisticated architectural framework, finely preserved figural carving, extensive narrative programme and surviving traces of gilding, this relief stands as an outstanding example of Gandharan sculptural art. Its rarity lies not only in the quality of execution but also in the remarkable completeness of the panel, qualities that distinguish from published examples and stands as the most important held in private hands.