HUGE GANDHARA SCHIST STONE FIGURE OF STANDING BUDDHA

C. 100-300 AD. Gandharan. A huge grey schist figure of a standing Buddha figure. This excellent figure is backed by a circular halo and dressed in a flowing Kasaya (monastic robe). The head features thick, rich lips, an aquiline nose, half-closed eyes with well-defined eyelids, arched brows, an urna on the forehead, prominent ears and carefully modelled, wavy hair, culminating in an ushnisha. The figure stands atop a rectangular base. Gandhara was an ancient region in the Peshawar basin in the north-west of the ancient Indian subcontinent. The Kushan period (c. 75-451 AD) of Gandharan art, to which this schist figure belongs, was the golden age of artistic production in the area. For further information on Gandharan art, see Jongeward, D. 2019, Buddhist Art Of Gandhara in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Good condition. Provenance: Property of a Middlesex collector; acquired on the London art market before 2000; formerly in an old English collection since the 1970s. Size: L:1120mm / W:365mm ; 60+kg