Head of the Buddha, 4th-5th century, Pakistan (Gandhara). Stucco with pigments. H. 24 × 13 × 16 cm. The Walters Art Museum, Gift of John and Berthe Ford, 2002, 25.243.

This stucco head once belonged to a Buddha sculpture that occupied either a shrine or a niche on the exterior of a stupa (a sacred mound encasing Buddhist relics). Although the characteristic bump on the crown of the Buddha’s head ("ushnisha") is now missing, the remainder of an elongated right earlobe confirms the figure’s identity. His facial features and wavy hair bear a connection to Greco-Roman sculpture—an artistic outcome of the political and mercantile ties that existed between ancient Gandhara and the Greco-Roman world. Hand-modeled with smooth stucco, the figure was once painted, and traces of pigments remain on the eyebrows, eyes, and lips.