Standing figure of Bodhisattva

Charles Lang Freer purchased this figure of a bodhisattva, or enlightened being, in 1917. It exemplifies some of the mistakes collectors made trying to date Buddhist sculpture in an era of little comparative material outside of China.

In 1917 dealers dated the sculpture to the sixth century and claimed they knew from which temple it had been taken in the northern province of Shanxi. There has been no way to document this provenance. However, today the bodhisattva's pose with thrust hip is recognized as typical of the Tang dynasty (618-907).

As recently as 1959, the eminent sculpture authority Osvald Siren still accepted a sixth-century date for the work, but in 1962 he proposed an early-tenth-century date. The heavy gold pigment may have misled him, since most Tang dynasty sculptures he studied in Western collections are devoid of pigment. Although it is unclear precisely when the gold was applied, almost all Tang sculptures were originally brightly colored.

Another early-twentieth-century misconception about this sculpture was that it represents a female. In fact, the long-haired, bare-chested figure wearing an Indian-style skirt is decidedly male.