NORTHERN QI-SUI DYNASTY, 6TH CENTURY

This sensitively carved head of Buddha likely comes from Shandong or Hebei province and is very similar to a Northern-Qi dynasty stone head in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, illustrated by D. Leidy and D. Strahan in Wisdom Embodied, Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010, p. 172, no. A12. Both the present head and the example in The Metropolitan Museum are of diminutive size and share stylistic similarities of the softly curving eyelids and mouth. See, also, a slightly larger stone head of Buddha (12 ¼ in.) sold at Christie’s New York, 18 March 2016, lot 1406, and one in the Rietberg Museum illustrated by H. Brinker and E. Fischer in Treasures from the Rietberg Museum, New York, 1980, p. 137, no. 51.