Head of a Bodhisattva

China

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 206

This head belonged to an attendant bodhisattva that was carved into the back wall of Cave 21 at Tianlongshan, a small complex consisting of twenty-four cave shrines and a wooden temple, located about twenty-five miles southwest of Taiyuan, in Shanxi province. Construction of Tianlongshan’s cave shrines began in the six century and continued until the early eighth century, and it was sponsored throughout by the imperial families of the Eastern Wei, Northern Qi, Sui, and Tang dynasties.

Head of a Bodhisattva, Sandstone with pigment, China

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