Standing Buddha

Mathura, Gupta Period, 5th century AD
Indian Museum, Calcutta

The museum's label (as of 2005) assigns this sculpture to the 3d century AD, but that can't be right; its transparent, clinging garments, body proportions, pipestem legs, and facial modeling are pure Gupta. The feet and lower left arm are restorations.

Mathura is a city in North India, near Agra, that has been inhabited continuously for more than 2,000 years. Discoveries there have yielded so many outstanding works of early art, especially from the Kusana through the Gupta periods, that authors such as Harle, p. 59, consider it "of supreme importance in the history of Indian sculpture." In spite of this, systematic excavations there have hardly been carried out at all, prevented by the city's continuous occupation down to the present day.