Beschreibung:

Lot details Ancient region of Gandhara, 4th-5th century. Powerfully modeled, the face framed by dense facial hair arranged into long voluminous curls, wavy hair, a billowing mustache below a straight nose, and a full beard set around full lips, the eyebrows and pupils with cold paint. Provenance: Arthur Huc (1854-1932). Marcel Huc, inherited from the above. Thence by descent within the same family. Arthur Huc was the chief editor of La Dépêche du Midi, at the time the leading newspaper in Toulouse, France. He was also an accomplished art critic and early patron of several artists, including Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec. At the same time, Arthur Huc was a keen collector of Asian art, a passion that he inherited from his legendary ancestor Évariste Régis Huc, also known as the Abbé Huc (1813-1860), a French Catholic priest and traveler who became famous for his accounts of Qing-era China, Mongolia and especially the then-almost-unknown Tibet in his book “Remembrances of a Journey in Tartary, Tibet, and China”. Inventory List: In 1954, L. Magniette, bailiff of the court in Toulouse (Huissier), was ordered to compile a complete inventory of the collection inherited by Marcel Huc from his father, Arthur Huc, the so-called “Inventaire Huc”. The present lot is listed in this inventory as follows: “Serie de vingt deux têtes en terre-cuite. GANDHARA” (series of twenty-two terracotta heads. GANDHARA). A copy of the inventory list and cover page are accompanying this lot. Condition: Very good condition, fully consistent with the age of the sculpture. Some firing flaws, dents and losses to exposed areas, the nose tip with a small old repair. Remnants of a varnish coating which was applied a long time ago. Some ancient pigment is well preserved, especially to the eyebrows French Export License: Certificat d’exportation pour un bien culturel Nr. 185423 dated 3 July 2017 has been granted and a copy is accompanying this lot. Weight: 10.2 kg Dimensions: Height 48.5 cm (incl. stand), 32.5 cm (excl. stand) This large terracotta head is an extremely rare legacy of the ancient kingdom of Gandhara, encapsulating the rich cultural interplay and hybrid art styles derived from Hellenistic and Indian influences. It depicts the bodhisattva Vajrapani, the protector of Buddhism, represented with the iconography of the Greek god Hercules, who was widely venerated as a hero and savior in western Asia during the early centuries of the present era. As a great champion, yet one who nevertheless understood the human condition, Hercules was easily assimilated into Mahayana Buddhism. Like other Gandharan bodhisattvas, he is depicted as an earthly prince with his aristocratic bearing and posture, but the naturalistic face is reminiscent of Greco-Roman sculpture. The kingdom of Gandhara lasted from 530 BC to 1021 AD, when its last king was murdered by his own troops. It stretched across parts of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan. Gandhara is noted for its distinctive style in Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian and Indian artistic iinfluences. Gandharan style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. In the first century AD, Gandhara was the birthplace of some of the earliest Buddhist images. The use of hard-fired ceramic instead of stone such as schist was popular during the later Gandharan period from the 4th to the 6th centuries. Fired clay was expensive in the area, because the wood needed for the firing process was scarce. Therefore, such an expensive sculpture would have been a highly meritorious Buddhist offering. Only very few terracotta statues from this period and of this size have ever been recorded. Literature comparison: Compare a related terracotta head of Dionysos, dated to the 4th-5th century Gandharan, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1979.507.2. Sculptures with similarly substantial beards are also common to Gandharan Atlante