A Grey Schist Figure of a Standing Bodhisattva

Agnelli Collectino, Turin, circa 1960s 

This well-proportioned and skillfully carved sculpture depicts a bodhisattva standing in elegant ease. His youthful face with downcast eyes and pursed lips bears a serene expression. His hair is arranged in an elaborate coiffure of curls and looped tresses terminating in a domed top knot above his head secured by a jeweled fillet, further adorned in a jeweled collar with matching armband and a looped chain necklace with makara terminals centering a now-missing gem. His finely pleated robes offer a striking contrast to his bare muscular torso and typify the Gandharan style of drapery for which these sculptures are famous.

The bodhisattva, or enlightened being, was a central feature of Mahayana Buddhism which was popular in the Gandharan region during the early centuries of the Common Era. The Mahayana ideology advocated the importance of faith in the Buddha principle, expressed through love and devotion, as the most important element in the achievement of salvation. The means through which salvation could be attained was worship of the bodhisattva, who was also a model of benevolence and compassion, qualities exemplified in the present sculpture.

The bodhisattva’s rich accoutrements display the syncretic nature of jewelry traditions in vogue at the time. While the collar and matching armbands were staples in Indic representations of deities, the pendent necklace with figural terminals is completely Hellenistic in style and conception. The chains are in the loop-in-loop style which was widely prevalent in Greek jewelry. The makara terminals are obviously of Indic origin but it is interesting to note that the tradition of figural and animal-headed terminals was also a fixture of Scythian and Parthian ornamentation.

The present lot may be compared with two similar sculptures of youthful bodhisattvas in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum (acc. 939.18.1 & 940.18.1) see I. Kurita, Gandharan Art II: The World of the Buddha, Tokyo, 2003, pl.15 & 16. The comparable works cited above have been identified as Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, based on their flowing tresses, a reference to the deity’s ascetic antecedents in Mahayanist theology. The sculpture’s refinement and elegant restraint place it in 2nd/3rd centuries CE, often considered the ‘high’ period of Gandharan art.