Fine Chinese Carved Sandstone Bodhisattva. Possibly, Northern Wei Dynasty, or a later Ming/Qing copy. Seated atop a platform in a layered long robe, with concentric folds of a lighter fabric clinging to each leg, which is crossed at the ankles, the deities braided hair exposed beneath a headdress with a Buddha image, arms poised in Abhaya Mudra, right hand held upright with the palm facing forward in a gesture of allaying fears, two felines flank the platform.cf. A sandstone Bodhisattva, 460-480 AD. Metropolitan Museum, NY. (22.134) is closely related to the sandstone Bodhisattva being offered here. Each sculpture shares in posture, gesture, headdress, and presentation of drapery. Specifically, the distinctive folds that seem to cling and overlap upon the deity’s crossed legs. The Museum dates it’s figure to 460/480 AD and compares it to the figures excavated in the Caves at Yungang, Shanxi Province, China. Another, Bodhisattva from the Norman A. Kurland Collection, exhibited, Eskenazi, London, Six Dynasties, Art from the Kurland Collection, (cover illus.) November 2018, shares iconography with both the Met’s Bodhisattva and the offered example. Although differences abound in hand positions and facial features, the slimer outline of abdomen and waist, on both the Kurland and the offered example, further strengthens an association between the three Bodhisattvas. Size: 8 1/8 x 3 5/8 x 13 in.