Note: Of small size, the present fragment is characteristic of Longmen sculpure with its attenuated form, slightly forward pose and its cascading drapery falling over the body in low relief. Similar sculptures in situ can be found in some of the earliest caves executed at Longmen, such as the famous Guyang cave begun when the Northern Wei rulers moved their capital from Datong to Luoyang in AD 494, and thereby transferred their patronage from the Yungang monastery to that at Longmen because of its proximity to the new capital.

Compare other examples of low-relief figures, arguably identifiable with the Guyang Cave, seated in the more common cross-legged pose traditionally associated with Maitreya, beneath a widening skirt with flattened, rippling, pleated hems, illustrated in Longmen liu diaoxiang ji, Shanghai, 1993, figs. 7, 8, 11 and 13. Compare another figure in the collection of the Norton Museum of Art, Palm Beach, illustrated by J. Finlay, The Chinese Collection: Selected Works from the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, 2003, cat. no. 48. An extremely closely related figure excavated from the Longmen site is illustrated in Zhongguo Meishu Quanji, Diaosu - 11 - Longmen shiku diaoke, Beijing, 1988, fig. 49. A figure with a posture more similar to the present lot, is illustrated ibid., fig. 48. The latter is also similar to another Longmen Maitreya in the Western pose, formerly in the collection of Avery Brundage, now preserved in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, and illustrated by d'Argence, Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection, Tokyo, 1974, fig. 40.

Sotheby's. Arts d'Asie, Paris, 22 Jun 2017