Country Group: China, Japan and Korea

Item id: 8600

Head is approximately 8" tall and 13.5" tall on its custom base.

A remarkable Chinese stone Buddha head carved out of a crystalline stone that sparkles like no other out of which I have ever seen a Buddha carved. From the back, almost looks like it might have metallic crystalline element to the stone- it is extremely heavy, and if it didn't look like it had been taken off a larger wall, I might have thought it had come from a large meteorite. Believed to originate from Buddhist Art collection of Cheng Huan S.C., which was sold off in London some years ago. While much of his collection was sold at an auction house with direct attribution (and high reserves), some of his pieces that did not have tangible provenance or that were harder to pin down to a specific dating were reportedly sold through a smaller London auction house (as was this piece) without attribution.

Note the multiple layers of lacquer and/or gilding. The gilding looks very old, but the piece does not at all look weathered in any way. This suggests this piece may have been in a cave for many centuries, possibly a thousand years or more.