A RARE PARCEL POLYCHROME STONE HEAD OF A BODHISATTVA

Description:

China, Liao dynasty
H. 30 cm (o.S.)
The head finely sculpted with a serene facial expression showing downcast eyes below arched eyebrows that run into the nose-bridge, smiling lips, elongated earlobes, the hair combed in a chignon displaying many curls, secured with a lobed tiara decorated with flower heads around the lower band ornamented with a pair of pattras and a band running over the chignon connecting the lobed section with the horizontal band around the hairdo, a textile layer covering his face enhanced with pigment remains. With a metal base.
From an old South German private collection, acquired in 1981, expertise by Galerie Löschengruber dated 27 August 1981 available
Cf. for this rare stone head with the unusual hairstyle a figure from the collection of L. Wannieck, Paris, published in Osvald Sirén, 'Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century', Volume II, pl. 569 with a very similar hairstyle. See also pl. 303A and pl. 329 for earlier dated sculptures - Wear, partly chipped