Buddha statue pulled from Sotheby’s auction on suspicion it may be from China Unesco site
A Buddha head from the Tang dynasty may have originated from a world heritage monument site
An intricately carved limestone Buddha head was removed from a Sotheby’s auction in New York this week, after evidence emerged that it may have originated from a Unesco heritage site in China.
Investigations are under way to determine if the sculpture is indeed one of the 100,000 statues from the ancient Buddhist Longmen Caves, a kilometre-long system of grottoes carved in limestone cliffs in central China’s Henan province
The item was pulled from sale ahead of the auction on September 12, but not before it was included in the list of Chinese artefacts published in the catalogue.
“Our attention was drawn to an image of a sculpture, very similar to the present work, published by a Japanese photographer who documented the Longmen Caves in the 1920s and 1930s,” Sotheby’s said on Friday.
Items in the auction, all from a private collection, were valued between US$10,000 and US$2.5 million, according to the Sotheby’s website. Although the Buddha was removed from the catalogue, an online listing showed the Tang dynasty relic was valued at between US$2 million and US$3 million.
