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India - Bodhisattva or hindu god like Vishnu Bust - Gupta - 5th to 6th Century- Thermoluminescence.s"
Stuccoed ceramic bust of Vishnu in his solar representation. His headdress is typical and has the appearance of a pleated cap on either side of the central motif. He has a Brahmin cord on his torso, and we can clearly see that the statue originally had four arms, which allows us to confidently identify Vishnu. This iconography is interesting because it leads us to consider this piece as a late piece from the Gupta period, even though the style is typically Gupta. We know, in fact, that the dynasty's decline began at the end of the 5th century. High-quality artistic production continued well beyond the dynasty's demise, through numerous workshops that appeared further east, such as the production of Sarnath (the Golden Age of Classical India: the Gupta Empire: p. 32). This analysis is confirmed by the TL Test, which gives a 1306 years old since the last firing, or 712 AD. A piece in the Bangladesh Museum is quite similar and is described as dating from the same period (Masterpiece of the Ganges Delta p. 142-143). Furthermore, the technique
(stucco-ceramic) and the black coating found on many late Gupta pieces suggest that in the post-Gupta period, as the Pala Empire emerged, the fashion shifted to black basalt stone stelae.
Dimensions excluding base: Height: 42 cm; Width: 22 cm; Depth: 8 cm.
Origin: Gupta Dynasty (Northern India), late period - 5th to 6th century.
Provenance: Former Luxembourg collection acquired in the 1970s - Dr. VDW Collection

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