Page 16 - Christies DEVOTION IN STONE Gandharan Art From a Japanese Collection Sept 23 2020 NYC

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A RARE CARVED GRAY SCHIST WRESTLER'S WEIGHT
ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD-4TH CENTURY CE
10Ω in. (26.7 cm.) high; 15√ in. (40.3 cm.) wide
$15,000-20,000
PROVENANCE:
Gai Collection, Peshawar, by 1957.
Spink & Son, Ltd., London, by 1985.
Private collection, Japan, acquired from the above, 1985.
Important private collection, Japan, by 1990.
LITERATURE:
H. Ingholt, Gandharan Art in Pakistan, 1957, New York, pl. no. 445.
I. Kurita, Gandharan Art, vol. I, Tokyo, 1988, p. 53, fig. 93.
M. Akira, Gandharan Art and Bamiyan Site, Tokyo, 2006, p. 101, no. 70.

With a scene of two wrestlers grappling on one side, and an incised lotus
between two well-worn and hand-shaped indentations on the other, the
present work is likely to have been a stone weight used by ancient wrestlers
or athletes for training. A comparable example in the collection of The
Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 1994.112) has a similar form, with
two semi-circular indentations on one side. The Met example is carved
with a similar scene of two wrestlers grappling on the side with the hand
holds, while the other face is carved with a scene of Hercules facing a lion,
reflecting the influence of the Graeco-Roman traditions in the area. Another
wrestler's weight, with a single remaining handle carved in open work on one
end, resides in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography,
formerly the National Museum of Oriental Art, in Rome, illustrated by A. di
Castro in "A Late Gandharan Wrestler's Weight," East and West, vol. 53, no.
1/4, December 2003, p. 258, fig. 1. The Pigorini example is carved on one face
with a lotus motif not dissimilar to the present example, and on the other face
with a gada, or club, the mythical weapon of Vishnu. In the Indian tradition,
athletes and warriors mythologized the club as the ultimate battle weapon,
and trained with heavy club-form weights in order to master wielding the
weapon. The simultaneous presence of weights with both Graeco-Roman
and proto-Hindu motifs in the Gandharan context illustrates the confluence of
cultures and traditions in the region in ancient times.

Wrestler’s weight (front and reverse); Ancient region of Gandhara, circa 1st century CE; Schist, 10 ¼ (26 cm.) high; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;
Gift of Florence and Herbert Irving, 1994.112.

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