 3. SANDSTONE FIGURE OF VISHNU Current and Past Exhibitions
3. SANDSTONE FIGURE OF VISHNU.KHMER, PRE-ANGKOR PERIOD,7TH - 8TH CENTURY.H. (EXCLUDING TANG): 67 CMS, 26 ½ INS.H. (INCLUDING TANG): 84 CMS, 33 INS .An important sandstone figure of a four-armed Vishnu, dynamic and powerful, standing on a rectangular pedestal and wearing a cylindrical mitre headdress; the face meditative and smiling serenely; the contours of his lower body visible beneath a diaphanous ankle-length sampot, its folds delineated by faintly incised lines, with a long central sash hanging down between his legs.Note: The ankles are repaired.Vishnu, together with Brahma and Siva, is one of the members of the Hindu trimurti (Skt. “Triple Form”). Vishnu becomes incarnate in different divine forms (avatars) from age to age in order to preserve the world.For a related image, attributed to the Mekong Delta, see plate 10 in Emma Bunker and Douglas Latchford, Adoration and Glory: The Golden Age of Khmer Art, Chicago: Art Media Resources, 2004.PROVENANCE: Property of a private Japanese collector.
|  26 STUCCO HEAD OF A BODHISATTVA Current and Past Exhibitions
26 STUCCO HEAD OF A BODHISATTVA. NORTHWEST PAKISTAN OR AFGHANISTAN.GANDHARA.4TH - 5TH CENTURY AD.H. 18 CMS, 7 INS. A sublimely beautiful white stucco head of a Bodhisattva with a gentle face and soft eyes, the hair in wavy lines and secured by a circular diadem.In Kim, Rudyard Kipling refers to the Gandhara sculptures of the Lahore Museum as possessing ‘the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch’ and this is especially apparent here. For a similar head see no. 328 in Isao Kurita, Gandharan Art II: The Buddha’s Life Story, Tokyo: Nigensha publishing, 2003.
|  2 SANDSTONE TORSO OF A FEMALE DEITY Current and Past Exhibitions
2. SANDSTONE TORSO OF A FEMALE DEITY.KHMER,ANGKOR PERIOD,BAPHUON STYLE,11TH CENTURY.H. 49 CMS, 19 ½ INS.A voluptuous, perfectly proportioned, pale buff sandstone torso of a four-armed female deity, perhaps Uma, wearing a vertically striated sampot knotted below the stomach with a curved pleat and with a long central flap terminating in a fishtail.As with the Baphuon male figure illustrated in catalogue no. 1, this sculpture is an idealized representation of the human form.For a related sculpture see nos. 15 in M. Lerner, Ancient Khmer Sculpture, Chinese Porcelain Company exhibition catalogue, New York, 1994. PROVENANCE: Property of a private Japanese collector.
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