A SCHIST RELIEF PANEL WITH A SCENE OF WORSHIPPING THE BUDDHA, ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD-4TH CE

拍品描述

A GANDHARAN SCHIST RELIEF PANEL WITH A SCENE OF THE WORSHIP OF THE BUDDHA, ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD-4TH CENTURY Carved in medium-high relief from grey schist, the rectangular panel is composed as a horizontal narrative frieze. At the left, the Buddha is seated frontally on a draped rectangular throne or plinth, his legs pendant and his monastic robe falling in deeply cut, regularly spaced folds across both shoulders in the manner ultimately derived from the Roman pallium. The head is inclined slightly forward, the hair arranged in wavy locks gathered into a prominent ushnisha, and the face carries the downcast, meditative expression characteristic of the Gandharan idiom. To the right of the throne stand three attendant figures in staggered depth, each robed in similarly rendered drapery and turning inward toward the Buddha. The two foremost wear elaborate turbans and heavy necklaces, marking them as figures of secular or princely rank; the third, partly obscured behind, is more summarily carved. At the far right of the panel, framed within a rectangular architectural niche defined by a plain pilaster, a smaller standing figure is set upon a lotus pedestal, one leg slightly flexed, the head haloed and inclined. The lower edge of the panel is finished with a plain groundline, and the reverse and upper edge are left roughly dressed, indicating that the block was originally set into a larger architectural programme. The scene belongs to the category of adoration or homage compositions that populate Gandharan stupa reliefs, in which the Buddha is approached by devotees, donors, or named figures from the wider Buddhist narrative cycle. The turbaned laymen with their heavy jewellery are of the type generally read as royal or noble worshippers; comparable groupings occur in scenes of the visit of Indra, the homage of local rulers, and the offering scenes that framed the base registers and drum panels of Gandharan stupas. The lotus-borne figure at the right, isolated within its own architectural bay, functions as an iconic pendant to the narrative group, a device by which the Gandharan sculptors juxtaposed episodic and devotional imagery within a single field. The panel is representative of the schist workshops of the ancient region of Gandhara, which extended across the Peshawar basin, Swat, and the Taxila valley in what is now northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. The choice of grey-blue schist is characteristic of these workshops, the stone quarried locally and worked with an assurance that permitted deep undercutting, fine drapery folds, and the naturalistic modelling of head and torso for which the tradition is known. Gandharan sculpture is the meeting point of Indian Buddhist subject matter with formal conventions drawn from the Hellenistic and Roman east, transmitted through the Kushan empire and its trade networks; the drapery system visible on this panel, with its parallel, ridge-and-furrow folds, is a direct inheritance of that lineage. Reliefs of this scale and format were set into the drums and bases of stupas, or into the walls of monastic complexes, where they formed continuous narrative programmes for circumambulation. The panel exemplifies the mature phase of Gandharan relief carving, in which the compressed narrative frieze, the frontal seated Buddha, and the isolated iconic figure within an architectural bay are combined in a single field. It preserves both the descriptive and the devotional registers of the tradition, and its condition, with the principal figures substantially intact, allows the compositional logic of the original stupa programme to be read with unusual clarity. Dimensions: Length: 46cm

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