ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD-4TH CENTURY CE

Lots 610 and 611, Indo-Corinthian capitals, once crowned columns and pilasters at important monuments, stupas, and temples. The present examples both present Buddhist figures, a bodhisattva and a devotee, interspersed within lush Corinthian-style foliage. A similar capital to lot 611, showing a Buddha with his hand raised in abhayamudra in the collection of the British Museum is illustrated by W. Zwalf in A Catalogue of the Gandhāra Sculpture in the British Museum, London, 1996, no. 457. See, also, a capital in the Walters Art Museum (acc. no. 25.48), presenting a yakshi, or nature spirit, similar in scale to lot 610.