Page 96 - Bonhams NYC Indian and Himalayan Art March 2019

885 W
A SCHIST FIGURE OF MAITREYA
ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, CIRCA 3RD/4TH CENTURY
28 in. (71 cm) high
$40,000 - 60,000

犍陀羅 約三/四世紀 片巖彌勒菩薩像

Sporting an elaborate turban, this well-carved and polished schist sculpture of Maitreya
shows the Future Buddha raising his hands in dharmachakrapavartina mudra to progress
the Buddhist Dharma. The sculptor has obviously sought to emphasize this feature of
Maitreya’s iconography, carving them slightly oversized and with attractive digits.

As seen in a closely related example, the fire altar carved in low relief at the center of his
rectangular throne is common to Gandharan depictions of Maitreya (Christie’s, New York,
21 March 2012, lot 724) and another in the Ashmolean Museum (Harle, Indian Art, Oxford,
1987, p.14, no.16), that also has crown ribbons flailing across the nimbus. This appears
to be a flamboyant feature reserved for Maitreya sculptures, repeated in an example in the
Musée Guimet (Auboyer, Rarities in the Musée Guimet, Paris, 1973, p.23, no.1).

Compare the close stylistic treatment of this sculpture’s arrangement of jewels and turban
- with a tall central fan-shaped cockade - to that of another published in Kurita, Gandharan
Art, Vol. II, Tokyo, 2003, p.57, no.141. Furthermore, compare one with the cloth-covered
base (ibid., p.63, no.157), and another with the same repeated loops draping over the
proper right leg, published in Ingholt, Gandharan Art in Pakistan, London, 1957, p.137,
no.302.

Provenance
French Private Collection, acquired in the 1960s
ArtCurial, Paris, 11 June 2018, lot 161

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