Note: The present fine head represents the height of Northern Wei period carving particularly seen at the Longmen cave temples, near Luoyang in Henan province. Figures of this type, depicted with slender bodies, sloping shoulders and delicate facial features which included the curved ‘butterfly’ eyebrows, were made to represent the ideal beauty at the time. As seen in this head, the stylisation of the facial features is distinct with a pronounced narrow and elongated head and a high crown that further emphasizes the linearity of the sculpture. This bodhisattva has an ethereal quality with the lips shown in an enigmatic smile that represented the purest form of the ideal of Buddhist spiritual enlightenment. 

For comparable examples, see two seated figures of bodhisattvas, both from Longmen and now in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich, illustrated in Osvald Sirén, Chinese Sculptures in the von der Heydt Collection, Zurich, 1959, pls. 11-2, of similar facial features to the present example. Compare also three figures from Longmen published in Zhongguo meishu quanji, vol. 11, Shanghai, 1988, pls. 52-4; a related head of a bodhisattva, attributed to Longmen, published in Rene-Yvon Lefebvre d’Argence (ed.), Chinese, Korean and Japanese Sculpture in the Avery Brundage Collection, Tokyo, 1974, pl. 34; and a further example, from the collection of Chu Hsiao-shih, Taipei, included in the exhibition Chinese Buddhist Sculpture from the Wei through the T’ang Dynasties, National Museum of History, Taipei, 1983, cat. no. 9.

Compare also a head sold in our London rooms, 16th December 1980, lot 435; another, sold at Christie’s New York, 20th March 1997, lot 122; and a third example sold at Christie’s New York, 6th June 1985, lot 529.

Sotheby's, Hong Kong, Chinese Art through the Eye of Sakamoto Goro, 8 October 2013