A carved limestone Buddhist stele - China Tang Dynasty

A carved limestone Buddhist stele - China Tang Dynasty

Depicting three Buddhas seated side by side in European style, each dressed in monk’s garments that fall in rhythmic folds across each body, the hair combed into two whorls fronting the remains of a low ushnisha rising from a head surrounded by five miniature seated Buddhas within a bodhi–leaf nimbus carved in shallow relief to the background of the leaf-shaped stele, the front base of the stele displaying four lines from a votive inscription and the reverse roughly finished (losses, traces of pigment).  35 3/4in (91cm) high - Sold for $100,000 plus Premium and tax

Provenance: Sotheby's London, 11 July 1978 sale, Lot 34, the characters in the inscription read as zhuan fa lun (turning the wheel of the law), xiang yi chu (one image), ci san (granting three). . . , fu hui (blessedness and wisdom). . .
Spink and Sons, London

Bonhams. Fine Asian Works of Art, 18 Dec 2007. 220 San Bruno Avenue, San Francisco, California