Galerie Golconda

Statue of a Maïtreya Boddhisattva in majesty, seated on a mound below a canopy, draped in his monastic robe, the Utarasanga with ballooning folds. These pleats are in the Hellenistic fashion, falling all the way down to the base over his legs beneath his habit, while he himself is seated in the so-called European posture. The torso is adorned with heavy chest ornaments and pearl garlands that evoke his princely origins. He wears a moustache and has curly hair with a chignon on top of which the strands are clearly visible with a part of the front loop missing. The aureole, a solar symbol of Indian origins accompanies Buddha, who has become the being of the future. Very beautiful dark blue-gray schist showing an excellent patina. Small accidents and parts missing. Some calcareous deposits and remains from the sandy dig on the surface. The back of the stele is flat because it would have been placed, according to the custom, against the wall of a stupa or temple. Fine condition. The art of the Gandhâra was the first to represent Buddha in a human form, harmoniously associating the Hellenistic themes, that had inherited the canons of balanced beauty, with Indian art of the North coming from the region of Mathura. This Greco-Buddhist art, born in the valleys of present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, is the result of the influence due to the conquests of these lands by the Macedonian king Alexander the Great.