Lot 8. A polychromed stucco head of Buddha, ancient region of Gandhara, circa 6th century; 61 cm (24 in.) high. Estimate HK$ 3,000,000 - 5,000,000 (€ 330,000 - 540,000). © Bonhams 2001-2018
Published: Johnathan Tucker, The Silk Road: Art and History, London, 2015, p.52, fig.54.
Note: Remarkable in its scale and state of preservation, this head is from a colossal representation of Buddha produced for a once monumental stupa along the ancient Silk Road in modern day Afghanistan. It presents one of the earliest and most influential sculptural traditions representing Buddha in human form, and bespeaks these thriving centers of Buddhism in the first half of the first millennium CE. This head is perhaps the only one of two or three massive examples surviving in such excellent condition.
Whereas most Gandharan stucco sculptures have suffered far more from exposure to the elements and political changes in Central Asia over two millennia, the face's impeccably smooth surface is preserved in its near original glory. The artist's fine molding of Buddha's wavy locks endure, radiating from a central widow's peak, flowing over the domed ushnisha, and terminating before the ears in curls. Also, the original polychrome decoration is mostly intact. Brushstrokes in red cinnabar accentuate the hairline, nose, and lips. Thick black lines run across the arches of his brow and his eyes. The gaze half covered by lowered eyelids, evoking Buddha's detachment from the mundane.
The only known Gandharan stucco head larger than this example and surviving in equally excellent condition is in the David R. Nalin Collection, at a height of 102.5 cm (Basu, Displaying Many Faces, China, 2004, pp.82-3, no.83). In her footnotes, Basu surveys the archaeological records that discuss the remains of monumental stucco Buddhas in Gandhara, mostly found at Hadda and Takht-i-Bahi. The Nalin head also shows a hollow, unfinished back, indicating these monumental heads were worked separately from their corresponding bodies and attached to shoulders by an armature.
A related colossal head of Buddha in the Musée Guimet was collected in Hadda at the Tapa Kalan Monastery in 1926 (MG 17273, see Jarrige et al., Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet , Paris, 2001). A smaller, but finely preserved head from Hadda, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (IM.3-1931), shows the same oval depression used to define the philtrum across all these related stucco heads. Further comparisons to the present sculpture's sensitive modeling can be made with a stucco head of Buddha in the Tokyo National Museum (I. Kurita, Gandharan Art II, The World of the Buddha, Tokyo, 2003, p.121, no.326), and another example formerly in the Cleveland Museum of Art (Hollis, 'Central Asian Stucco Sculptures', The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 32, no. 3, March 1945, pp.26–7).