Lot 15. An extremely rare grey schist head of the ascetic Siddhartha, Ancient region of Gandhara, 2nd / 3rd century. Height 18 cm. Lot Sold 63,500 EUR (Estimate 50,000 - 100,000 EUR) © Sotheby's 2025

Provenance: German Private Collection, formed during the 1950s.
Galerie Jacques Barrère, Paris, 15th December 2003.
French Private collection, Bergerac, and thence by family descent.

Note: The fragmentary head remains from a rare and important sculpture of the emaciated Siddhartha portraying the physical signs of prolonged fasting. Skin is drawn tight over the fleshless skull revealing a network of veins on the forehead surrounding the now empty gem-set urna. Haunting eyes gaze out from deep in their sockets. Cheeks are hollowed and mouth downturned, with lips resolutely pressed together. Waves of still luxuriant hair cover the head and the rounded ushnisha.

Such sculptures are generally thought to depict Siddhartha in his ultimately unsuccessful attempt to achieve enlightenment through rigorous asceticism. It is said that he fasted in meditation for six years having renounced his princely heritage. It has also been suggested that the emaciated figure may represent Shakyamuni Buddha after his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, where he remained in meditation and fasted for forty-nine days, see Kurt Behrendt, The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2007, p. 58.

It appears that the depiction of this episode in the life of the Buddha — experiencing the extremes of asceticism —first evolved in the Gandhara region, as seen in the small number of circa second to fifth century Gandhara schist sculptures and relief panels that depict the scene. The imagery spread to Central Asia, seen in circa fifth century wall paintings at Kizil, see Marylin Rhie, Early Buddhist Art of China and Central Asia, Leiden, 2010, p. 164; and to Kashmir, seen in a rare eighth century ivory panel in The Cleveland Museum of Art that depicts three consecutive episodes in the life of the Buddha: Siddhartha fasting and emaciated; his acceptance of the futility of the ascetic path in the quest for enlightenment; and finally ending his fast with milk rice offered by Sujata, see Pratapaditya Pal, Himalayas: An Aesthetic Journey, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2003, cat. no. 69. There is little evidence that the veneration of the fasting Siddhartha was popular among Buddhists in the rest of the Indian subcontinent.

Compare the emaciated schist head found at a village in Rawalpindi District and now in the British Museum, in W. Zwalf, A Catalogue of the Gandhara Sculpture in the British Museum, vol. I, London, 1996, pl. VIII; and a small head in the Museum für Indische Kunst, Berlin, in S. Czuma, Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India, Cleveland, 1985, cat. no. 111.

Sotheby's. Arts d'Asie, Paris, 12 June 2025