? A LARGE AND HIGHLY IMPORTANT CHUNAR SANDSTONE TORSO OF THE BUDDHA, SARNATH, GUPTA PERIOD, 5TH CENTURY

Expert’s Note:
The sculpture is carved from Chunar sandstone, a fine-grained and dense material quarried in the region of Chunar, along the Ganges. Valued from the Mauryan period onward, Chunar sandstone was favored for high-status sculptural commissions due to its ability to take a smooth finish and hold crisp detail. Its warm buff to reddish tones and characteristic surface polish are consistent with the stone traditionally employed for elite religious sculpture in northern India, particularly in Sarnath during the Gupta era. Depicting the Buddha in a plain robe that clings to the body, without interrupting the beauty of its contours, was a new development in the sculptural workshops of Sarnath during the 5^th century AD. This form spread slowly by means of portable images to peninsular Southeast Asia, as exemplified by a Dvaravati sandstone Buddha torso, dated 7^th-8^th century, now in the Walters Art Museum, accession number 25.149.

India, Uttar Pradesh. Standing in a slightly flexed pose with the right leg advanced, the cape-like outer robe closely follows the sensuous contours of the body, relieved only by the fishtail pleats of the diaphanous undergarment gathered at the ankles. The left hand is lowered above the hem, which descends in softly cascading folds.

Provenance: Jonathan Tucker and Antonia Tozer Asian Art, London, United Kingdom, 2016. The private collection of Michael Phillips, acquired from the above. A copy of an email correspondence between Jonathan Tucker & Antonia Tozer Asian Art and Michael Phillips, with a detailed description of the present lot and stating a purchase price of GBP 50,000 or approx. EUR 80,000 (converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing), accompanies this lot. Jonathan Tucker and Antonia Tozer are a husband-and-wife team, both former specialists with the venerable trading house of Spink & Son in London, Tucker as associate director of Indian and Southeast Asian art and Tozer as an expert in Chinese art. The couple operated a successful gallery in St. James’s, London for more than twenty years, and now work by appointment in the Cotswolds. During their many years in the Asian art field, they have sold to museums and private collectors throughout the world. Michael Phillips (born 1943) is an Academy Award-winning film producer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, his parents were Lawrence and Shirley Phillips, noted New York dealers in Asian fine arts, selling to the Met, the LACMA, the Chicago Art Institute, and the British Museum among others. Michael Phillips is a collector of Asian art himself, particularly Indian, Southeast Asian, and Himalayan sculpture. His most important films include The Sting (winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1973), Taxi Driver (winning the Palme d’Or at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival), and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Condition: Very good condition, commensurate with age. Old wear, obvious losses, small chips, scattered nicks and scratches, signs of weathering and erosion, encrustations. The stone with a fine, naturally grown, smooth patina.

Weight: 71.5 kg (incl. stand)
Dimensions: Height 81 cm (excl. stand), 89 cm (incl. stand)

Mounted on an associated stand. (2)

The Gupta period derives its name from a long succession of kings bearing the Gupta suffix. By the second half of the fifth century Sarnath became the principal center, during the reigns of Buddhagupta and Kumaragupta. Sarnath is located near the ancient city of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges River and is identified as the place where the Buddha gave his first teaching. The characteristics of the Sarnath School of sculpture include the wearing of a diaphanous robe which accentuates the contours of the body, a softly swelling chest and abdomen and elongated lower limbs. The small number of figures that survive are typically carved in pale beige Chunar sandstone like the present lot.

Gupta art from Sarnath and Mathura shared a highly refined court style favoring abstract and idealized figures that are now recognized as India's "classical" style. When compared to its Mathuran counterparts, Sarnath sculpture displays an even greater level of sensitivity, with gently rounded forms, subtle lines, delicate detail such as the finely delineated folds at the shoulders, and concentration on the essence. It represents the universally acknowledged pinnacle of Indian art. The drapery is completely smooth, as opposed to Gandharan sculpture, revealing a gently stylized bodily outline and emphasis on the hands and their gestures.

Why Buddha was portrayed in a stylized way, resisting exact portraiture, is often explained by the former being able to better communicate his true essence. Without neck or arms, the sculpture's surviving state heightens the already pronounced abstraction inherent to the Gupta style, often viewed as the golden age of Indian sculpture.

Literature comparison:
Compare a closely related Sarnath sandstone torso of Buddha dated to the 5^th century, 97.8 cm high, in the Musée Guimet, and illustrated by Jeannine Auboyer in Rarities of the Musée Guimet, New York, 1975, no. 12. Compare a closely related Sarnath sandstone torso of Buddha, dated to the 5^th century, in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, accession number 39-19, illustrated by Pratapaditya Pal, The Ideal Image, New York, 1978, p. 70, no. 17. Compare a closely related Sarnath sandstone torso of Buddha, dated to the 5^th century, 76.2 cm high, in the Cleveland Museum of Art, accession number 1943.278.

Auction result comparison:
Type: Closely related
Auction: Sotheby’s London, 26 February 2002, lot 12
Price: GBP 157,500 or approx. EUR 338,000 converted and adjusted for inflation at the time of writing
Description: A Gupta red sandstone torso of Buddha, Uttah Pradesh, 5th century
Expert remark: Compare the closely related modeling, manner of carving, and subject. Note the red color of the sandstone.

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