GANDHARA, 2ND/3RD CENTURY

Very few examples of this type with tapered tang socketed into a separately carved lotus base are published complete with the base; compare with the figure of a teaching Buddha offered by Spink and Son, see exhibition catalogue The Lion of the Shakyas, November - December 1998, cat. no. 2; the figure of a seated Buddha at the Kabul Museum, see B. Rowland, Art in Afghanistan, 1971, cat. no. 107; and a shrine of the Teaching Buddha at the Indian Museum, Calcutta, in A. Foucher, L'Art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara, 1905, vol. 1, fig. 76, p. 192. As in the present example, the two elements do not appear to completely relate stylistically. The base, for example, is carved completely in the round while the figure is typically not finished on the reverse, indicating that the base was possibly later associated. Various related examples of the Teaching Buddha, but lacking the base, are recorded: in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, cf. D. Klimburg-Salter, Buddha in Indien, 1985, cat. no. 129, similarly carved with a tapered tang at the base and originally placed in a separately carved plinth; and another example sold at Christie's New York, 20 September 2000, lot 17.
While both feet are generally visible, only the toes of the right foot are exposed here, otherwise concealed by the ample folds of the shawl.