Limestone Buddhist stele
China, Northern Qi dynasty, 550 - 577

A limestone fragmentary stele, depicting a figure of the Buddha, flanked on his left by a Bodhisattva. The plain, smooth robe of the Buddha covers the shoulders and arms, and his right hand holds the seam of his robe. The head has a typical cranial bump and the hair is tied into neatly arranged rows of tightly rolled curls. The face has a benign, compassionate expression with heavy-lidded eyes and a small, pursed mouth. Directly behind the head is a halo, composed of lotus petals. The Buddha stands on a rounded base, which terminates in a pointed end. The Bodhisattva is of slightly smaller size and draped in layered diaphanous robes that are tied into knots in the centre. He is adorned with elaborate beaded necklaces, which are secured with a circular ornament on the stomach. The Bodhisattva’s robes fall into elaborate pleats at the hem and on the shoulders. An elaborate diadem crowns the head, behind which the remains of a lotus petal halo can be seen. Between the two figures a sinuous dragon appears, with its hind legs and tail pointing upwards. Emanating from the dragon’s wide-open mouth is a lotus flower pedestal, which supports the Bodhisattva. Engraved lines on the flat surface behind the figures indicate the mandorla. The stone has considerable encrustations of hard earth.

• This superb quality fragmentary stele of relatively compact size originally featured another figure of a Bodhisattva flanking the Buddha, thus forming a traditional Buddhist triad, crowned by a flame-like mandorla. The pointed base of the stele would have fitted into the central cavity of a separate lotus-form stand. Tsuda points out that the basic form of this type of two-part stone stele was developed from small votive bronzes that were popular as early as the 5th century.1 It is known from inscriptions that sculptures such as this example were commissioned either by individual believers or by groups of Buddhist laymen, as well as by monks and nuns, and that they were donated for the accumulation of merit and good karma.2 The Buddha and Bodhisattva on the present stele bear a striking resemblance to a number of sculptures in the famous hoard discovered at Qingzhou, Shandong province in 1996. The sculptures in this group range in date from the Northern Wei period to the Northern Song dynasty (960 – 1279). In the present stele, the realistic portrayal of the figures, as well as the simplicity of the Buddha’s attire, his slightly rounded face and his hairdo of tightly rolled curls all point to a Northern Qi dynasty date3. A stylistically similar but larger triad dated to the Northern Qi dynasty is in the Aurora Foundation Collection, Taiwan.4 A slightly earlier stele, also of large format, is in the Musée Guimet in Paris.5

1 Nickel, L. (ed.) The Return of the Buddha, Buddhist Sculptures of the 6th Century from Qingzhou, China, Museum Rietberg, Zürich 2002, p. 117
2 Nickel, L. (ed.) op. cit. p. 121
3 Nickel, L. (ed.) op. cit., nos. 21, 22 and 25
4 Chen Hui-hsia and Lee, Yu-Min The Art of Contemplation, Religious Sculpture from Private Collections, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 1997,
5 Watson, W. The Arts of China to AD 900, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1995, no. 235, p.144