A rare fragmentary painted marble figure of a bodhisattva China, Late Northern Zhou / Sui dynasty, late 6th Century

the figure standing dressed in long robes cascading in ample flaring folds from the shoulders, with two longer scarves intersecting within a ring set on the protruding belly before looping over the knees, the hands emerging from the folds to bear up a fly-whisk in the right and a handled heart-shaped fan or plaque in the lowered left hand, the squared head with small delicate features framed by a high columnar crown and flanking scarves, the back now polished flat to reveal the micaceous marble and with ample traces of red and green pigments overall, wood stand with Japanese label to underside

The micaceous marble of the present image relates it closely to a group of painted marble images, usually paired bodhisattvas or triad groups, from Hebei province. While these images vary in sculptural relief, some being almost rudimentary in their flatness and limited detailing to the drapery, the best of these are strongly varied in volume and depth. The present figure, with its elaborate drapery and pronounced forward thrust of the hips, is of the intermediary Northern Zhou type, utilizing Northern Qi iconography but tending towards later Sui period volume and elaboration. Compare two standing painted marble bodhisattvas illustrated Hai-Wai Yi-Chen. Chinese Art in Overseas Collections, Buddhist Sculpture II, Taipei, 1990, no. 77 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and no. 92 in the Cleveland Museum of Art.