figure
- Museum number
- 1917,1009.1
- Title
- Object: Bodhisattva
- Description
-
Head from an image of a turbaned Bodhisattva. The head has everywhere smooth surfaces curving gently and the almost pointed chin is small. The eyebrows are regularly curved edges, rounded in section, of the forehead; the open eyes have prominent lids and the straight nose, under the round ūrṇā in low relief, has a rounded bridge; a short moustache curves from each side of the bare upper lip. The long, partly damaged concave ears are oblique to the head with long lobes and vestiges of earrings.
The turban is centrally crested and sits low on the head so that only a little hair appears beside and above the ears. Two twisted bands around the sides meet in front through a pair of knots and a third band rises from them to skirt the crest and the plain area behind it. Between the two lower bands on each side a winged horned monster in low relief with rounded snout, forelegs and coiled tail faces away from the knots towards a blown flower, and below the upper band the same motif is interrupted on each side by mortises near the front with the consequent loss of the heads; beyond them on both sides is a confused field of beasts and other motifs in low relief. On the proper right, separated by a circular stone, two winged monsters with forelegs and snaking bodies of the type already described confront each other beside the mortise. On the left and facing an area of damage is a small winged snaking beast of very linear conception but probably similar type above two circular stones and below them what may be a winged horse rearing above indistinct features; beyond another mortise as far as the back are the larger protome of another homed winged monster with forelegs and a dolphin or fish below. A lost vertical loop of cloth with its pleated end below may be represented on the left in the mortise towards the back and a damaged projection below; on the opposite side only an area of damage corresponds.
The roughly semicircular fantail of the crest seems to have had in front a medallion with a narrow border of heart shapes and a central ornament, now wholly lost, resting on twisted bands and with a pair of winged monster supporters, their tails curving and their heads looking inwards across the crest. It is now represented by a vertically sliced projection horizontally rebated above with a smoothed arched surface or shelf in front of a rough tenon projecting from a short and irregular vertical wall; this must have accommodated an addition or repair which was further secured at the front by a tenon of which part may survive as a rough piece of stone still in the mortise. The two dovetail mortises to each side of the crest, one still retaining a rough piece of stone, may have helped to secure the addition or repair.
- Production date
- 2ndC-3rdC
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 20 centimetres
-
Height: 55 centimetres (With base)
-
Height: 42 centimetres
-
Weight: 45 kilograms
-
Width: 27.90 centimetres (With base)
-
Width: 23.50 centimetres
-
Depth: 25.30 centimetres (With base)
- Curator's comments
- Zwalf 1996:
Tissot suggests that the turban is based on an original which combined a metal cap, decorated en repousse, and textile.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
1994, Kyoto National Museum, Masterpieces of Buddhist and Hindu Sculpture from the British Museum
1994, Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art, Masterpieces of Buddhist and Hindu Sculpture from the British Museum
2010/11 14 Oct- 3 Apr, London BM, Images and Sacred Texts: Buddhism across Asia
- Condition
- 1.Grey schist, broken and chipped.
2.Neck irregularly broken at an upward slant to back; earpendants almost wholly lost; vestige of halo has irregular outline; much of turban crest incomplete.
3.Back uneven with round hole now accommodating a metal mount.
- Acquisition date
- 1917
- Acquisition notes
- Formerly in the Hope collection, sold at Christie's (July 1917)
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1917,1009.1