A FINE AND RARE MARBLE TORSO OF MAITREYA

Tang dynasty

Footnotes

唐 大理石菩薩身像

Provenance: Shirley Day, London, 1997

Maitreya, in Buddhist tradition, has two aspects. On one hand, he is a bodhisattva, residing in the Tushita heaven. However, at some time in the future, when the teachings of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni have decayed and been forgotten, he will descend from the Tushita Heaven into this world and attain enlightenment as a successor to the Historical Buddha. He will preach a new law and bring peace to the world as a universal ruler. This messianic aspect to the possible immanent arrival of Maitreya into the troubled world inspired several religious movements and political rebellions from the Six Dynasties to the Tang period. How the two aspects of Maitreya were depicted in sculpture also changed over time. As a bodhisattva, he was depicted by Northern Wei sculptors as a bejeweled Indian prince wearing a long scarf over his bare chest and a long dhoti around his legs either crossed in front of him or with the left leg parallel and resting on the pendant right leg when shown seated. With the revival of the Maitreya cult in the seventh century, he wears the same monk's robes as Sakyamuni, Amitabha and Vairocana Buddha; but, instead of sitting as they do with legs crossed in the posture of meditation, Maitreya sits with his legs pendant and knees apart. This is also the pose and dress that identities this impressive marble fragment as Maitreya, the Future Buddha.

Perhaps the most striking feature of this marble fragment is its realistic portrayal of a seated figure revealed beneath drapery. The remains of his thick neck and developed pectoral muscles appear above his inner garment that crosses from his left shoulder downward to the right and is secured around his full chest by a knotted sash. The voluminous outer garment spreads in unevenly spaced pleats and folds that suggest the natural effects of gravity as they fall across the arms, pendant legs and the front edge of the seat supporting him. Even the loop to the knotted belt falls over the upper edge of the outer garment in a natural manner.

A most impressive example for the interest in the cult of Maitreya during the Tang period is the huge seated figure of the Future Buddha carved in cave 565 at Longmen, commissioned by the eminent abbot Huijian. The dedicatory inscription dated 673 places its construction during the reign of the emperor Gaozong (650-683) and his wife Wu Zetian (684-704), who usurped the throne as emperor of the second Zhou dynasty and proclaimed herself as an incarnation of the future Buddha Maitreya in 690. Professor Howard sees an idealized kind of realism reflected in the full chest and strong limbs to a natural body discernable under incised robes of this Maitreya (see Angela Howard, Wu Hong, Li Song and Yang Hong, Chinese Sculpture [Yale University and Foreign Language Press, 2006], p.298 and p.301, il. 3.108). However the same traits are less apparent in sculptures of smaller scale from the years 675 to 700.

The first is the seated Buddha Maitreya in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (the Avery Brundage Collection, B61S38+ (27 1/2in [69.9cm] high), of polished limestone, associated with the Tang capital of Chang'an). The inscription dated Shangyuan second year (675) records its commission by the Buddhist disciple Gao Zhouni and his daughter Huiming – one example of many that document patronage of Buddhism away from the imperial court http://asianart.emuseum.com/view/objects/asitem/items$0040:4872 . The Asian Art Museum Maitreya preserves such features missing from the marble Maitreya fragment as the head, feet and lotus plants supporting them as they issue from the base of the supporting plinth. Although the Asian Art Museum Maitreya sits in a believable natural position, the raised folds in his outer garment form an abstract pattern of repeated symmetrical curves that ignore any effect of gravity. His head is beautifully detailed, in contrast to the damaged mandorla behind it. However the tiny features on so wide a face give impression that the head is too large for the body. One senses a gentle, childlike quality in this Maitreya instead of the more realistic impression conveyed by the much larger Maitreya in the Huijian Cave and this marble Maitreya fragment.

A similar tendency appears among the bas relief panels of similar small size (height of the larger panels varying from 41 to 42in [104.6 to 108.1cm]) that depict Maitreya, Amitabha and Vairocana Buddha in monk's robes seated between standing attendants in the Indian costume of bodhisattvas. The panels were commissioned by the Wu Zetian around 700 for the Qibaotai (Seven Jewel Tower) added to the Guangzhai Temple in Chang'an, earlier commissioned by the Empress Wu in 677. Some of the plaques show the dates Chang'an 3 and 4 (703 and 704) and are now dispersed in various collections (see Howard, Chinese Sculpture, p.303 and p.306, il.3.112; see also Oswald Siren, Chinese Sculpture from the Fifth to the Fourteenth Century [(SDI Publications, Thailand, 1998], volume II, pp.24-25 and Pl.393A to 397). There is some variation in the quality of workmanship throughout. However the majority show a large head with exquisitely realized features and delicate patterning in the drapery folds of the garments similar to those described in the Asian Art Museum Maitreya of 675. The imbalance in the size of heads in relation to bodies is discernible in each seated Buddha and standing attendant bodhisattva, suggesting the same childlike quality at the end of Wu Zetian's rule that we sense in Asian Art Museum Maitreya of 675. However a number of sculptures made shortly after her death display a more mature and realistic human figure consistent with the spirit of this marble Maitreya fragment.

In 1975, Marilyn Rhie published her study 'A T'ang Period Stele Inscription and Cave XXI at T'ien-Lung Shan' (Archives of Asian Art, vol. 28 (1974/75), pp.6-33). Her purpose was to establish a date as early as 703 for construction of some cave temples at Tianlongshan, located near Taiyuan City in Shansi. Three statues included in her study are also of great help in establishing when this marble Maitreya fragment was carved. The first statue is the gray limestone Buddha in the Shodo Hakubutsukan, Tokyo, dated by inscription to 711 (illustrated p.16, Fig.14; 49 1/4in [125cm] high). The second is the diminutive white marble headless Buddha, dated by inscription to 717 (p.16, Fig.16; 12 1/8in [30.8cm] high; now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 1985.214.14 3, published as possibly from Hebei province in Denise Patry Leidy and Dana Strathan, Wisdom Embodied: Chinese Buddhist and Daoist Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [2010], p.175). The third is the white marble Amitabha Buddha with an incomplete base from the Qinglongsi in Chang'an, now in the Eisei Bunko Foundation, Tokyo (illustrated p.16, Fig.15; also published in Siren, Chinese Sculpture, volume II, p.27 and Plate 406A, listed as 30in [76cm] high; height of the image listed as 57.6cm [22in] when the statue appeared in the Nara National Museum exhibition Nihon Bukkyo bijutsu no genryu [Sources of Japanese Art], 29 April to 11 June, 1978, p.36. No.34, as eighth century). Also of note may be the seated Maitreya now in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, given to the Museum by the Ernest Erickson estate. A date of 711 for the virtually complete dark brown stone figure with a mandorla framing his head, based on its resemblance to the massive Amitabha in the Shodo Hakubutsukan (see Jan Wirgin (ed) et al, Ernest Ericksen Collections in Swedish Museums [Ostasiatiska Museet, Stockholm, 1989] no. 62, pp. 66-7, 61cm [24in] high]; also published in Siren, Chinese Sculpture Vol. II, p. 21 and PL. 380). http://collections.smvk.se/carlotta-om/web/object/101392


Each of the three figures sits with the legs crossed in the posture of meditation, the left hand resting on the left thigh, the raised right arm either missing or showing the remains of the hand held in the abhaya mudra. The arrangement of drapery folds in their outer garments is also similar throughout: gathered in raised folds that fan outward on the left shoulder and loop downward across the torso, exposing the slightly raised pectoral muscles of the chest, and terminating beneath vertical folds of fabric that fall from the right shoulder onto the extended right forearm. The Shodo Hakubutsukan Buddha of 711 is the most massive, with his head silhouetted against a mandorla rising from the back of the throne, very wide shoulders and the impression of sheer corpulence to his torso intensified by the rounded surface of the belly visible beneath his belted undergarment. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Buddha of 717 lacks a head and is the least imposing, considering its small size. However the body is proportional, pectoral muscles are well delineated and the arrangement of the outer garment folds echoes the general arrangement of those on the Buddha of 711 and marble Amitabha from the Qinglongsi in the Eisei Bunko Foundation. In fact, Professor Rhie suggested a date close to 717 for the latter sculpture.

The Amitabha from the Qinglongsi is especially well finished and detailed. The pectoral muscles rising in rounded relief from a crisply delineated outline across the chest mirror those on this white marble Maitreya fragment; but the sculptor of the Amitabha even included a nipple on the right breast. The fabric that cascades down the incomplete pedestal of the Amitabha falls in weighty folds and recesses as it covers the tips of petals from the lotus support beneath. This sense of convincing realism also marks the outer garment of the marble Maitreya fragment as the fabric falls across his lap and pendant legs. When the Amitabha from the Qinglongsi was published in the 1978 exhibition at the Nara National Museum, the catalog mentions due to the restrictions on the casting of gilt bronze statues in Kaiyuan 2nd year (714), sculptors turned to marble. The popularity for marble as a medium for Buddhist statuary can be inferred from the number of examples surviving from the years Kaiyuan 10th year (723) to Tianbao 10th year (752). The entry also mentioned that the realistic inclusion of the nipple on the right breast shows the influence from the cave temples of Tianlongshan on the marble sculpture of metropolitan Chang'an (see Nihon Bukkyo bijutsu no genryu, p. 36 No. 34 cited above).

The Tianlongshan caves are located near Taiyuan, Shansi. The site has many caves with dated inscriptions from Six Dynasties; but none of the cave temples carved during the Tang have a datable inscription. Nor do we know who commissioned them, although they must have held great power since Taiyuan had long associations with the Tang imperial house. In her 1975 article cited above, Professor Rhie suggested that work on Cave XXI could have started as early as 703 and continued through the reign of the emperor Xuanzong (713-756). Professor Howard aptly described their striking realism: 'The art of Tianlongshan is more secular than that of any other Tang site of the early eight century, to the extent that the holiness of the image is undermined' (see Howard, Chinese Sculpture, p. 309). The source for the nipple on the right chest of the Qinglongsi marble Amitabha from Chang'an appears on the Maitreya photographed in Cave IV (see Siren, Chinese Sculpture, p.47 and Pl.486) and the sensuous seated bodhisattva turning toward his left in Cave VI (Sire, Chinese Sculpture p.47 and Pl. 488). In addition, variations on the way fabric cascades over the lotus flower support to the Qinglongsi marble Amitabha can be found on the seated Buddha from Cave XXI (Rhie, 'A T'ang Period Stele,' p.7 fig.1) and the headless figure within the doorway of Cave VI (Siren, Chinese Sculpture, p.47 and Pl. 487). Finally, good parallels to the intense physical realism in the figure and fabric of the marble Maitreya fragment in the current lot can also be found in the serene Maitreya of Cave IV (Siren, Chinese Sculpture, p 47 and Pl. 486); in the more forceful Maitreya of Cave XVII (Siren, Chinese Sculpture, p. 49 and Pl. 499 (dated by Professor Rhie to be the latest cave in the Tang series, dating in the late Kaiyuan to-early Tianbao period, circa 735-745 – see, p. 20); and in the quiet but headless Maitreya in the Nelson-Atkins Gallery, Kansas City, listed as probably from Cave IV at Tianlongshan (20in [50.8cm], Object number 32-65/2, dated as ca. 725) https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/25516/seated-maitreya-buddha.

In summary, Lot 159- this white marble fragment of Maitreya - displays compelling parallels in drapery and figure type to caves at Tianlongshan in Shanxi and the white marble Amitabha from Qinglongsi - some of the finest Chinese Buddhist sculpture produced in the Tang period. While there is general agreement that Tang work at Tianlongshan commenced in the early years of the eighth century, there is no firm proof that activity there ceased during the An Lushan revolts of the 750s. In fact, Professor Howard notes that a reflection of the influential Tianlong style at Dunhuang, far to the west in Gansu, while already apparent around the year 725 in Cave 45, lingered there as late as the 890s in Cave 196 (see Howard, Chinese Sculpture, p.309, p. 310, il.3.116 and p. 311, il.3.117). However the headless Maitreya from the Nelson-Atkins Museum is listed as circa 725. As noted above, Professor Rhie considered the sculpture in Cave 17 to the latest work at Tianlongshan. A more conservative date of the 8th century was assigned in the Nara National Museum catalog for the undated white marble Amitabha now in the Eisei Bunko Foundation, although the same entry also suggests a more restricted time frame from Kaiyuan 2 (714) to Tianbao 10 (756) in the reign of the emperor Xuanzong.